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Memorial 


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CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS 

ESSAYS 

OF 

PROFESSOR      WIliSC 
OF  EDINBURGH. 

In  Three  Volumes,  12mo, 

BEAUTIFULLY    PRINTED    ON    FINE    rAPEK. 


BIOGRAPHICAL  NOTICE  OF  PROFESSOR  WILSON. 

[I'ROJI  THE  BOOK  OF  GEMS.] 

John  Wilson  was  born  at  Paisley,  in  1789.  After  going 
through  a  preparatory  course  of  study  at  the  University  of 
Glasgow,  he  was  entered  a  fellow-connnoner  at  Magdalen 
College,  Oxford ;  and  very  soon  obtained  some  portion  of  that 
fame  of  which  he  was  destined  to  participate  so  largely.  Much 
of  his  paternal  property  was  lost  by  the  failure  of  a  mercantile 
concern  in  which  it  had  been  embarked  ;  but  enough  remained 
to  purchase  the  elegancies  of  life  :  he  bought  the  beautiful 
estate  of  EUeray,  on  the  lake  of  Winandermere — fit  dwelling 
for  a  poet — and  continues  to  inhabit  it,  when  his  professional 
duties  permit  his  absence  from  Edinburgh.  In  1812  he  pub- 
lished the  Isle  of  Palms  ;  and  the  City  of  the  Plague,  in  1816. 
In  1820,  he  became,  under  circumstances  highly  honourable  to 
him,  a  successful  candidate  for  the  Chair  of  Moral  Philosopiiy, 
in  the  University  of  the  Scottish  metropolis.  He  has  since 
published  but  little  poetry :  his  prose  tales — "  The  Trials  of 
Margaret  Lindsay,"  "The  Foresters,"  and  "Lights  and  Sha- 
dows of  Scottish  Life" — have,  however,  amply  compensated 
the  world  for  his  desertion  of  the  Muses;  and  his  contributions 
to  "Blackwood's  Magazine,"  which  are  too  strongly  marked  to 


4  BIOGRAnilCAL  NOTICE. 

leave  any  doubt  of  their  authorship,  have  established  for  him  a 
higli  and  enduring  reputation.  The  conduct  of  this  periodical 
is  so  universally  understood  to  be  in  the  hands  of  the  Professor, 
that  we  may  consider  ourselves  justified  in  describing  him  as 
its  editor.  He  has  long  upheld  its  supremacy  :  the  best  sup- 
ported magazines  of  England  have  failed  in  compethig  with  it; 
because  there  is  no  living  writer  whose  talents  are  so  versatile, 
and  consequently  so  fitted  to  deal  with  the  varied  topics  upon 
which  iiis  judgment  or  his  fancy  must  be  employed.  His 
learning  is  both  profound  and  excursive;  his  criticism  searching 
and  sound;  his  descriptions  of  scenery  exquisitely  true;  his 
paintings  of  human  character  and  passion  admirable;  his  wit 
and  humour  delightful,  when  it  does  not  degenerate  into 
"fun;"  and  no  writer  of  modern  times  has  written  so  many 
deliciously  eloquent  passages  which  produce,  if  we  may  so 
express  ourselves,  gushes  of  admiration.  The  mind  of  Wilson 
is  a  remarkable  blending  of  the  kindly  and  the  bitter: — his 
praise  is  always  full  and  hearty ;  his  censure  almost  unendura- 
ble: he  appears  to  have  no  control  over  his  likings  or  dislikings: 
— at  times,  pursues  with  almost  superhuman  wrath,  and  then, 
again,  becomes  so  generous  and  eloquent,  that  he  absolutely 
makes  an  author's  character,  and  establishes  his  position  by  a 
few  sentences  of  approval.  From  all  his  criticisms  there  may 
be  gathered  some  evidence  of  a  sound  heart ;  of  a  nature  like 
the  Highland  breezes — kern,  but  healthy ;  often  most  invigo- 
rating when  most  severe — but  which  may  be  safely  encountered 
only  by  those  whose  stamina  is  unquestionable.  The  personal 
appearance  of  Professor  Wilson  is  very  remarkable:  his  frame 
is,  like  his  mind,  powerful  and  robust.  His  complexion  is 
florid,  and  his  features  are  finely  marked  ;  the  mouth  is  ex- 
quisitely chiselled,  the  expression  of  his  countenance  is  gentle 
to  a  degree;  but  there  is  "  a  lurking  devil"  in  his  keen  gray 
eye,  that  gives  a  very  intelligible  hint  to  the  observer.  His 
forehead  is  broad  and  high.  To  us,  among  all  the  great  men 
we  have  ever  beheld — and  they  have  not  been  few — there  is 
not  one  wiio  so  thoroughly  extorts  a  mingled  sensation  of  love 
and  fear. 


CRITICAL    AND    MISCELLANEOUS 


ESSAYS. 


BY    CHRISTOPHER    NORTH, 


(PROFESSOR  WILSON.) 


CRITICAL   AND   MISCELLANEOUS 


ESSAYS. 


BY 

CHRISTOPHER      N  O  R  T  11, 
(PROFESSOR    WILSON.) 

IN  THREE  VOLUMES. 
VOL.  I. 


PHILADELPHIA: 

CAREY    AND    H  A  R  T. 
1842. 


Entered,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1841,  by  Carey 
AND  Hart,  in  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  for  the  Eastern 
District  of  Pennsylvania. 


C.  Sherman  &  Co.  Printers, 
ly  St.  James  Street. 


tr  c? "? '^  ^-^  o  ^V  S 


taxij.^  L-n,.  x>j^i-\i-'.ci.±\.n.  \^KJLjijjur\jai  juAom 


o 


C.7 


V 


ADVERTISEMENT. 


The  writings  of  Professor  Wilson  are  characterized  by  a 
rich  and  genial  flow  of  sentiment  and  language.  His  poetical 
criticisms  are  almost  always  justified  by  the  soundest  princi- 
ples. And  his  descriptions  of  natural  scenery  and  woodland 
pleasures,  breathe  the  refreshment  of  fields  and  streams. 

The  present  collection  is  offered  to  the  public  with  the  hope 
of  diffusing  still  more  widely  the  enjoyment  with  which  the 
readers  of  Blackwood  have  long  been  familiar.  It  is  intended 
to  be  followed  by  the  republication,  in  a  similar  form,  from  the 
same  magazine,  of  the  elaborate  critiques,  by  the  same  hand, 
upon  those  great  poets,  ancient  and  modern,  of  whom  little  is 
generally  known  beyond  their  names. 


CONTENTS    OF    VOL.    I. 


CHRISTMAS  DREAMS 13 

CHRISTMAS  PRESENTS 9" 

CHRISTOPHER  IN  HIS  SPORTING  JACKET        .      .             ...  40 

SOLILOaUY  ON  THE  ANNUALS    . ^^ 

THEODORA 78 

DESCRIPTIVE  POETRY 84 

TREES 96 

BIRDS 108 

COTTAGES 121 

A  midsummer-day's  dream 169 

AN  essay  on  THE  THEORY  AND  THE  WRITINGS  OF  WORDS- 
WORTH       206 

poetry  of  the  PRESENT  DAY 328 

THE  EIRTH-DAY 337 

ARIA 386 


WILSON'S    MISCELLANIES. 


CHRISTMAS  DREAMS. 

(Blackwood's  Edinburgh  Magazine,  1828.) 

How  beautiful  are  all  the  subdivisions  of  time  diversi- 
fying the  dream  of  human  life,  as  it  glides  away  between 
earth  and  heaven  !  And  why  should  moralists  mourn  over 
that  mutability  that  gives  the  chief  charm  to  all  that  passes 
so  transitorily  before  our  eyes,  leaving  image  upon  image 
fairer  and  dearer  far  than  even  the  realities,  still  visible, 
and  it  may  be  for  ever,  in  the  waters  of  memory  sleeping 
within  the  heart?  Memory  never  awakes  but  along  with 
imagination,  and  therefore  it  is 

"  That  she  can  give  us  back  the  dead, 
Even  in  the  loveliest  looks  they  wore  I" 

The  years,  the  months,  the  weeks,  the  days,  the  nights, 
the  hours,  the  minutes,  the  moments,  each  is  in  itself  a 
different  living,  and  peopled,  and  haunted  world.  One  life 
is  a  thousand  lives,  and  each  individual,  as  he  fully  renews 
the  past,  reappears  in  a  thousand  characters,  yet  all  of 
them  bearing  a  mysterious  identity  not  to  be  misunderstood, 
and  all  of  them,  while  every  passion  has  been  shifting  and 
dying  away,  and  reascending  into  power,  still  under  the 
dominion  of  the  same  unchanging  conscience,  that  feels 
and  knows  that  it  is  from  God. 

Oh  !  who  can  complain  of  the  shortness  of  human  life, 
that  can  retravel  all  the  windings  and  wanderings,  and 
mazes  that  his  feet  have  trodden  since  the  farthest  back 

VOL.  I.  2 


14  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

hour  at  which  memory  pauses,  bafiled  and  blindfolded,  as 
she  vainly  tries  to  penetrate  and  illumine  the  palpable, 
the  impervious  darkness  that  shrouds  the  kw  first  for 
ever-forgotten  years  of  our  wonderful  being?  Long,  long, 
long  ago  seems  it  to  be  indeed,  when  we  remember  it,  the 
time  we  first  pulled  the  primroses  on  the  sunny  braes, 
wondering,  in  our  first  blissful  emotions  of  beauty,  at  the 
leaves  with  a  softness  all  their  own,  a  yellowness  nowhere 
else  so  vivid,  "  the  bright  consummate  flower,"  so  starlike  to 
our  awakened  imagination  among  the  lowly  grass — lovely, 
indeed,  to  our  admiring  eyes,  as  any  one  of  all  the  stars  that, 
in  their  turn,  did  seem  themselves  like  flowers  in  the  blue 
fields  of  heaven  ! — long,  long,  long  ago,  the  time  when  we 
danced  along,  hand  in  hand  with  our  golden-haired  sister, 
whom  all  that  looked  on  loved  ! — long,  long,  long  ago,  the 
day  on  which  she  died — the  hour,  so  far  more  dismal  than 
any  hour  that  can  now  darken  us  on  this  earth,  when  she — 
her  coffin — and  that  velvet  pall  descended — and  descended 
— slowly,  slowly  into  the  horrid  clay,  and  we  were  borne 
deathlike,  and  wishing  to  die,  out  of  the  churchyard,  that, 
from  that  moment,  we  thought  we  could  enter  never  more  ! 
And  oh!  what  a  multitudinous  being  must  ours  have  been, 
when,  before  our  boyhood  was  gone,  we  could  have  forgot- 
ten her  buried  face!  Or  at  the  dream  of  it,  dashed  off  a  tear, 
and  away,  with  a  bounding  heart,  in  the  midst  of  a  cloud 
of  playmates,  breaking  into  fragments  on  the  hill-side,  and 
hurrying  round  the  shores  of  those  wild  moorland  lochs, 
in  vain  hope  to  surprise  the  heron,  that  slowly  uplifted  his 
blue  bulk,  and  floated  away,  regardless  of  our  shouts,  to 
the  old  castle  woods  !  It  is  all  like  a  reminiscence  of  some 
other  stale  of  existence  !  Then,  after  all  the  joys  and  sor- 
rows of  those  few  years,  which  we  now  call  transitory,  but 
which  our  boyhood  felt  as  if  they  would  be  endless — as  if 
they  would  endure  ior  ever — arose  upon  us  the  glorious 
dawning  of  another  new  life — Youth  !  with  its  insupportable 
sunshine,  and  its  magnificent  storms !  transitory,  too,  we 
now  know,  and  well  deserving  the  name  of  dream  !  But 
while  it  lasted,  long,  various,  and  agonizing,  while,  unable 
to  sustain  "the  beauty  still  more  beauteous"  of  the  eyes 
that  first  revealed  to  us  the  light  of  love,  we  hurried  away 
from  the  parting  hour,  and,  looking  up  to  the  moon  and 


CHRISTMAS    DREAMS.  15 

Stars,  hugged  the  very  heavens  to  our  heart.  Yet  life  had 
not  yet  nearly  reached  its  meridian,  journeying  up  the 
sunbright  firmament.  How  long  hung  it  there  exulting, 
when  "  it  flamed  on  the  forehead  of  the  noontide  sky  !" 
Let  not  the  time  be  computed  by  the  lights  and  shadows 
of  the  years,  but  by  the  innumerable  array  of  visionary 
thoughts,  that  kept  deploying,  as  if  from  one  eternity  into 
another — now  in  dark  sullen  masses,  now  in  long  array, 
brightened  as  if  with  spear-points,  and  standards,  and 
moving  along  through  chasm,  abyss,  and  forest,  and  over 
the  summits  of  the  highest  mountains,  to  the  sound  of 
ethereal  music,  now  warlike  and  tempestuous — now,  as 
"  from  flutes  and  soft  recorders,"  accompanying,  not 
pajans  of  victory,  but  hymns  of  peace.  That  life,  too, 
seems,  now  that  it  is  gone,  to  have  been  of  a  thousand 
years.  Is  it  gone?  Its  skirts  are  yet  hovering  on  the 
horizon — and  is  there  yet  another  life  destined  for  us? 
That  life  which  we  fear  to  face, — age,  old  age !  Four 
dreams  within  a  dream,  and  then  we  may  awake  in 
heaven ! 

At  dead  of  night — and  it  is  now  the  dead  of  night — how 
the  heart  often  quakes  on  a  sudden  at  the  silent  resur- 
rection of  buried  thoughts  ! 

"Thoughts  that  like  phantoms  trackless  come  and  go  !" 

Perhaps  the  sunshine  of  some  one  single  Sabbath  of  more 
exceeding  holiness  comes  first  glimmering,  and  then 
brightening  upon  us,  with  the  very  same  religious  sanc- 
tity that  filled  all  the  air  at  the  tolling  of  the  kirk-bell, 
when  all  the  parish  was  hushed,  and  the  voice  of  streams 
heard  more  distinctly  among  the  banks  and  braes, — and 
then,  all  at  once,  a  thunder-storm  that  many  years  be- 
fore, or  many  years  after,  drove  us,  when  walking  alone 
over  the  mountains,  into  a  shieling,  will  seem  to  succeed, 
and  we  behold  the  same  threatening  aspect  of  the  hea- 
vens that  then  quailed  our  beating  hearts,  and  frowned 
down  our  eyelids  before  the  lightning  began  to  flash,  and 
the  black  rain  to  deluge  all  the  glens.  No  need  now  for 
any  eflbrt  of  thought.  The  images  rise  of  themselves — in- 
dependently of  our  volition — as  if  another  being,  stud3ring 
the  working  of  our  minds,  conjured  up  the  phantasmagoria 


16  Wilson's  jiiscellaxeous  writings. 

before  us,  who  are  beholding  it  with  love,  with  wonder,  or 
wiih  fear.  Darkness  and  silence  have  a  power  of  sorcery 
over  the  past;  and  the  soul  has  then,  too,  often  restored 
to  it  feelings  and  thoughts  that  it  had  lost — and  is  made 
to  know  that  nothing  which  it  once  experiences  ever 
perishes,  but  that  all  things  spiritual  possess  a  principle 
of  immortal  life. 

Why  linger  on  the  shadowy  wall  some  of  those  phan- 
tasmagoria— returning  after  they  have  disappeared — and 
reluctant  to  pass  away  into  their  former  oblivion  ?  Why 
shoot  others  athwart  the  gloom,  quick  as  spectral  figures 
seen  hurrying  among  mountains  during  a  great  storm? 
Why  do  some  glare  and  threaten — why  others  fade  away 
with  a  melancholy  smile — why  that  one — look  !  look  !  a 
figure  all  in  white,  and  with  while  roses  in  its  hair, 
comes  forward  through  the  haze,  beautifying  into  dis- 
tincter  form  and  face,  till  its  pale,  beseeching  hands 
almost  touch  my  bosom — and  then,  in  a  moment  it  is 
as  nothing ! 

But  now  the  room  is  disenchanted — and  feebly  my  lamp 
is  glimmering,  about  to  leave  me  to  the  light  of  the  moon 
and  stars.  There  is  it  trimmed  again — and  the  sudden 
increase  of  lustre  cheers  the  heart  within  me  like  a  fes- 
tal strain — and  to-morrow — to-morrow  is  IVIerry  Christ- 
mas, and  when  its  night  descends,  there  will  be  mirth 
and  music,  and  the  light  sound  of  the  merry-twinkling 
feet  within  these  now  so  melancholy  walls,  and  sleep 
now  reigning  over  all  the  house — save  this  one  room — 
will  be  banished  far  over  the  sea — and  Morning  will  be 
reluctant  to  allow  her  light  to  break  up  the  innocent 
orgies. 

Were  every  Christmas  of  which  we  have  been  present 
at  the  celebration,  painted  according  to  nature — what  a 
gallery  of  pictures!  True,  that  a  sameness  wou'd  per- 
vade them  all — but  only  that  kind  of  sameness  that 
pervades  the  nocturnal  heavens, — one  clear  night  being 
always,  to  common  eyes,  so  like  another, — for  w  hat  hath 
any  night  to  be  proud  of  but  one  moon  and  some  thousand 
stars — a  vault  "  darkly,  deeply,  beautifully  blue,"  here 
a  few  braided,  and  there  a  few  castellated  clouds?  Yet 
no  two  nights  ever  bore  more  than  a  family  resemblance 
to  each  other  before  the  studious  and  in.'itructed  eye  of  him 


CHRISTMAS    DREAMS.  17 

who  has  long  communed  with  Nature,  and  is  familiar  with 
every  smile  and  frown  on  her  changeful,  but  not  capri- 
cious countenance.  Even  so  with  the  annual  festivals 
of  the  heart.  Then  our  thoughts  are  the  stars  that  illu- 
mine those  skies — on  ourselves  it  depends  whether  they 
shall  be  black  as  Erebus  or  brighter  than  any  Aurora. 

My  father's  house  !  How  it  is  ringing,  like  a  grove  in 
spring,  with  the  din  of  creatures  happier,  a  thousand  limes 
happier,  than  all  the  birds  in  the  world  !  It  is  the  Christ- 
mas holidays — Christmas  day  itself — Christmas  night — 
and  joy  intensifies  love  in  every  bosom.  Never  before 
were  we  brothers  and  sisters  so  dear  to  one  another — 
never  before  had  our  hearts  so  yearned  towards  the  au- 
thors of  our  being — our  blissful  being  !  There  they  sit 
— silent  in  all  that  outcry — composed  in  all  that  disarray, 
' — still  in  all  that  tumult — yet,  as  one  or  other  flying  imp 
sweeps  round  the  chair,  a  father's  hand  will  playfully  try 
to  catch  a  prisoner, — a  mother's  gentler  touch  on  some 
sylph's  disordered  cymar  be  felt  almost  as  a  reproof,  and, 
for  a  moment,  slacken  the  fairy-flight.  One  old  game 
treads  on  the  heels  of  another — twenty  within  the  hour, 
— and  many  a  new  game  never  heard  of  before  nor  since, 
struck  out  by  the  collision  of  kindred  spirits  in  their  glee, 
the  transitory  fancies  of  genius  inventive  through  very 
delight.  Then,  all  at  once,  there  is  a  hush,  profound  as 
ever  falls  on  some  little  plat  within  a  forest,  when  the 
moon  drops  behind  the  mountain,  and  the  small  green- 
robed  people  of  peace  at  once  cease  their  pastime  and 
evanish.  For  she — the  silver  tongued  —  is  about  to  sing 
an  old  ballad,  words  and  air  both  hundreds  of  years  old, 
— and  sing  she  doth,  while  tears  begin  to  fall,  with  a  voice 
too  mournfully  beautiful  long  to  breathe  below, — and,  ere 
another  Christmas  shall  come  with  the  falling  snows, 
doomed  to  be  mute  on  earth — but  to  be  hymning  in 
heaven. 

Of  that  house — to  our  eyes  the  fairest  of  earthly  dwell- 
ings— with  its  old  ivied  turrets,  and  orchard-garden, 
bright  alike  with  fruit  and  flowers,  not  one  stone  re- 
mains !  The  very  brook  that  washed  its  foundations  has 
vanished  along  with  them, — and  a  crowd  of  other  build- 
ings, wliolly  without  character,  has  long  stood,  where  here 


18  avilson's  miscellaneous  wkitings. 

a  single  tree,  and  there  a  grove,  did  once  render  so  lovely 
that  small  demesne!  Which,  how  could  we,  who  thought 
it  the  very  heart  of  paradise,  even  for  one  moment  have 
believed  was  soon  to  be  blotted  out  from  being,  and  we  our- 
selves, then  so  linked  in  love  that  the  band  which  bound  us 
all  together  was,  in  its  gentle  pressure,  felt  not  nor  under- 
stood, to  be  scattered  far  and  abroad,  like  so  many  leaves, 
that  after  one  wild  parting  rustle  are  separated  by  roaring 
wind-eddies,  and  brouj^ht  tofiether  no  more  !  The  old 
abbey, — it  still  survives, — and  there,  in  that  corner  of 
the  burial-ground,  below  that  part  of  the  wall  which  was 
least  in  ruins,  and  which  we  often  climbed  to  reach  the 
starlings'  and  martins'  nests — there,  in  hopes  of  a  joyful 
resurrection,  lie  the  loved  and  venerated, — for  whom,  even 
now  that  so  many  long,  long,  grief-deadening  years  have 
fled,  I  feel,  in  this  hushed  and  holy  hour,  as  if  it  were  im- 
piety so  utterly  to  have  ceased  to  weep — so  seldom  to  re- 
member ! — and  then,  with  a  powerlessness  of  sympathy 
to  keep  pace  with  youth's  frantic  grief — the  floods  we  all 
wept  together — at  no  long  interval — on  those  pale  and 
smiling  faces,  as  they  lay  in  their  cofRns,  most  beautiful 
and  most  dreadful  to  behold  ! 

"  Childish  !  childish  !"  methinks  I  hear  some  world- 
wise  thinker  cry.  But  has  not  one  of  the  wisest  of  spirits 
said  "The  child  is  father  of  the  man?"  And  if  so,  ought 
the  man  ever  to  lose  sight  of  any  single  one  of  those  dear, 
dim,  delightful  remembrances,  far  off  and  remote,  of  ob- 
jects whether  alive  or  dead, — whether  instinct  with  love 
and  intelligence,  or  but  of  the  insensate  sod,  that  once 
were  to  him  all  his  being, — so  blended  was  that  being 
then,  with  all  it  saw  and  heard  on  this  musical  and  lus- 
trous earth,  that,  as  it  bounded  along  in  bliss,  it  was  but 
as  the  same  creation  with  the  grass,  the  flowers,  the  streams, 
the  trees,  the  clouds,  the  sky,  and  its  days  and  nights, 
— all  of  them  bound  together  by  one  invisible  chain, — 
a  green,  bright,  murmuring,  shadowy,  floating,  sunny  and 
starry  world, — of  which  the  enraptured  creature  that  en- 
joyed it  was  felt  to  be  the  very  centre, — and  the  very 
soul  ! 

Then  came  a  new  series  of  Christmasses,  celebrated, 
one   year   in   this  family,  another   year   in    that, — none 


CIIKISTJIAS    DREAMS.  19 

present  l)ut  those  whom  the  delightful  Elia,  alias  Charles 
Lamb,  calleth  the  "old  familiar  faees  ;"  something  in  all 
features,  and  all  tones  of  voiee,  and  all  manners,  betoken- 
ing origin  from  one  root, — relations  all,  happy,  and  with 
no  reason  either  to  be  ashamed  or  proud  of  their  neither 
high  nor  humble  birth — their  lot  being  cast  within  that 
pleasant  realm,  "  the  golden  mean,"  where  the  dwellings 
are  connecting  links  between  the  hut  and  hall,  fair  edifices 
resembling  manse  or  mansion-house,  according  as  the 
atmosphere  expands  or  contracts  their  dimensions,  in 
which  competence  is  next-door  neighbour  to  wealth,  and 
both  of  them  within  the  daily  walk  of  contentment. 

Merry  Christmasses  they  were  indeed — one  lady  al- 
ways presiding,  with  a  figure  that  once  had  been  the 
stateliest  among  the  stately,  but  then  somewhat  bent, 
without  being  bowed  bown,  beneath  an  easy  weight  of 
most  venerable  years.  Sweet  was  her  tremulous  voice 
to  all  lier  grandchildren's  ears  !  Nor  did  those  solemn 
eyes,  bedimmed  into  a  pathetic  beaut}^  in  any  degree 
restrain  the  glee  that  sparkled  in  orbs  thai  had  as  yet 
shed  not  many  tears,  but  tears  of  \n\y  or  of  joy.  Dearly 
she  loved  all  those  mortal  creatures  whom  she  was  soon 
about  to  leave  ;  but  she  sal  in  sunshine  even  within  the 
shadow  of  death  ;  and  the  "  voice  that  called  her  home" 
had  so  long  been  whispering  in  her  ear,  that  its  accents 
had  become  dear  to  her,  and  consolatory  every  word 
that  was  heard  in  the  silence,  as  from   another  world. 

Whether  we  were  indeed  all  so  witty  as  we  thought 
ourselves — uncles,  aunts,  nephews,  cousins,  and  "  the 
rest,"  it  might  be  presumptuous  in  us,  who  were  consi- 
dered by  ourselves  and  some  few  others  the  most  amusing 
of  the  whole  set,  at  this  distance  of  time  to  decide — espe- 
cially in  the  affirmative;  but  how  the  roof  did  ring  with 
sally,  pun,  retort,  and  repartee  !  Ay,  with  pun — a  species 
of  impertinence  for  which  we  have  therefore  a  kindness 
even  to  this  day.  Had  incomparable  Thomas  Hood  had 
the  good  fortune  to  have  been  born  a  cousin  of  ours,  how 
with  that  fine  fancy  of  his  would  he  have  shone  at  those 
Christmas  festivals,  eclipsing  us  all !  Our  family,  through 
all  its  difTerent  branches,  has  ever  been  famous  for  bad 
voices,  but  good  ears  ;  and  we  think  we  hear  ourselves — 


20  milson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

all  those  uncles  and  aunts,  nephews,  and  nieces,  and  cou- 
sins— singing  now  !  Easy  is  it  to  "  warble  melody"  as  to 
breathe  air.  But,  oh  !  we  hope  harmony  is  the  most  diffi- 
cult of  all  things  to  people  in  general,  for  to  us  it  was  im- 
possible ;  and  what  attempts  ours  used  to  be  at  seconds ! 
Yet  the  most  woful  failures  were  rapturously  encored  ;  and 
ere  the  night  was  dune,  we  spoke  with  most  extraordinary 
voices  indeed,  every  one  hoarser  than  another,  till  at  last, 
w.'dUing  home  with  a  fair  cousin,  there  was  nothing  left  for 
if  but  a  tender  glance  of  the  eye — a  tender  pressure  of  the 
hand — for  cousins  are  not  altogether  sisters,  and  although 
partaking  of  that  dearest  character,  possessing,  it  may  be, 
some  peculiar  and  appropriate  charms  of  their  own;  as 
didst  thou,  Emily  the  "  Wild-cap  !" — That  soubriquet  all 
forgotten  now — for  now  thou  art  a  matron,  gentle  as  a 
dove,  and  smiling  on  an  only  daughter,  almost  woman- 
grown — fair  and  frolicsome  in  her  innocence  as  thou  thy- 
self wert  of  yore,  when  the  gravest  and  wisest  withstood 
not  tiie  witchery  of  thy  dancings,  thy  singings,  and  thy 
showering  smiles ! 

On  rolled  suns  and  seasons — the  old  died — the  elderly 
became  old — and  the  young,  one  after  another,  were 
wafted  joyously  away  on  the  wings  of  hope,  like  birds, 
almost  as  soon  as  they  can  fly,  ungratefully  forsaking  their 
nests,  and  the  groves  in  whose  safe  shadow  they  first 
essayed  their  pinions  ;  or  like  pinnaces,  that,  after  having 
for  a  few  days  trimmed  their  snow-white  sails  in  the  land- 
locked bay,  close  to  whose  shores  of  silvery  sand  had 
grown  the  trees  that  furnished  timber  both  for  hull  and 
mast,  slip  their  tiny  cables  on  some  summer  day,  and 
gathering  every  breeze  that  blows,  go  dcuicing  over  the 
waves  in  sunshine,  and  melt  far  off  into  the  main  !  Or, 
haply,  some  were  like  fair  young  trees,  transplanted  during 
no  favourable  season,  and  never  to  take  root  in  another 
soil,  but  soon  leaf  and  branch  to  wither  beneath  the  tropic 
sun,  and  die  almost  unheeded  by  those  who  knew  not  how 
beautiful  they  were  beneath  the  dews  and  mists  of  their 
own  native  clime.  Vain  images!  and  therefore  chosen  by 
fancy  not  too  painfully  to  touch  the  heart!  For  some 
hearts  grow  cold  and  forbidding  in  selfish  cares — some, 
warm  as  ever  in  their  own  generous  glow,  were  touched  by 


CIIRIST3IA3    DREAMS.  21 

the  chill  of  Fortune's  frowns,  that  are  ever  worst  to  bear 
when  suddenly  succeeding  her  smiles — some,  to  rid  them- 
selves of  pamful  regrets,  took  refuge  in  forgetfulness,  and 
closed  their  eyes  to  the  past — duty  banished  some  abroad, 
and  duty  imprisoned  others  at  home — estrangements  there 
were,  at  first  unconscious  and  unintended,  yet  ere  long, 
though  causeless,  complete — changes  were  wrought  insen- 
sibly, invisibly,  even  in  the  innermost  nature  of  those,  who 
being  friends  knew  no  guile,  yet  came  thereby  at  last  to  be 
friends  no  more — unrequited  love  broke  some  bonds — re- 
quited love  relaxed  others — the  death  of  one  altered  the 
conditions  of  many — and  so — year  after  year — the  Christ- 
mas meeting  was  interrupted — deferred — till  finally  it 
ceased,  with  one  accord,  unrenewed  and  un renewable. 
For  when  some  things  cease — for  a  time — that  time  turns 
out  to  be  for  ever.  Survivors  of  those  happy  circles  ! 
wherever  ye  be — should  these  im[)erfect  remembrances  of 
days  of  old  chance,  in  some  thoughtful  pause  of  life's  busy 
turmoil,  for  a  moment  to  meet  your  eyes,  let  there  be 
towards  the  inditer  a  few  throbs  of  revived  affection  in 
your  hearts — for  his,  though  "  absent  long  and  distant 
far,"  has  never  been  utterly  forgetful  of  the  loves  and 
friendships  that  charmed  his  youth.  To  be  parted  in 
body  is  not  to  be  estranged  in  soul — and  many  a  dream — 
and  many  a  vision,  sacred  to  memory's  best  affections, 
may  pass  before  the  mind  of  one  whose  lips  are  silent. 
"  Out  of  sight  out  of  mind,"  is  rather  the  expression  of  a 
doubt — of  a  fear — than  of  a  belief  or  conviction.  The 
soul  surely  has  eyes  that  can  see  the  object  it  loves, 
through  all  intervening  darkness — and  of  those  more  espe- 
cially dear  it  keeps  within  itself  almost  undimmed  images, 
on  which,  when  they  know  it  not,  think  it  not,  believe  it 
not,  it  often  loves  to  gaze,  as  on  a  relic  imperishable  as  it 
is  hallowed. 

Hail!  rising  beautiful,  and  magnificent,  through  the  mists 
of  morning — hail !  hail  !  ye  woods,  groves,  towers,  and 
temples,  overshadowing  that  famous  stream  beloved  by 
all  the  Muses  !  Through  this  midnight  hush — methinks  I 
hear  faint  and  far  otf  a  sacred  music, — 


"Wlipre  througfli  the  long-drawn  aisle  and  fretted  vault, 
The  pealing  anthem  swells  the  note  of  prai.se  I" 


22  WILSON  S    MISCELLANKOUS    WRITINGS. 

How  steeped  in  tiie  beauty  of  moonlight  are  all  those  pale, 
pillared  ciiurches,  courts  and  cloisters,  shrines  and  altars, 
with  here  and  there  a  statue  standing  in  the  shade,  or  monu- 
ment sacred  to  the  memory  of  the  pious — the  immortal 
dead  !  Some  great  clock  is  striking  from  one  of  many 
domes — from  the  majestic  tower  of  St.  Mary  Magdalen — 
and  in  the  deepened  hush  that  follows  the  solemn  sound, 
hark  how  the  mingling  waters  of  the  Cherwell  and  the  Isis 
soften  the  severe  silence  of  the  holy  night ! 

Remote  from  kindred,  and  from  all  the  friendships  that 
were  the  native  growth  of  the  fair  fields  where  our  boy- 
hood and  our  youth  had  roamed,  and  meditated,  and 
dreamed,  those  were  yet  years  of  high  and  lofty  mood, 
which  held  us  in  converse  with  the  shades  of  great  poets 
and  sages  of  old  in  Rhedicyna's  hallowed  groves,  still, 
serene,  and  solemn,  as  that  Grecian  Academe  where 
divine  Plato,  with  all  Hybla  on  his  lips,  discoursed  such 
excellent  music,  that  this  life  seemed  to  the  imagination 
spiritualised — a  dim  reminiscence  of  some  former  state  of 
being.  How  sank  then  the  Christmas  service  of  that 
beautiful  liturgy  into  our  hearts  !  Not  faithless  we  to  the 
simple  worship  that  our  forefathers  had  loved  ;  but  con- 
science told  us  there  was  no  apostacy  in  the  feelings  that 
rose  within  us  when  that  deep  organ  'gan  to  blow,  that 
choir  of  youthful  voices  so  sweetly  to  join  the  diapason, — 
our  eyes  fixed  all  the  while  on  that  divine  picture  over  the 
altar,  of  our  Saviour 

"  Bearing  his  cross  up  rueful  Calvary." 

But  "a  change  comes  o'er  the  spirit  of  my  dream." 
How  beautiful  in  the  setting  sunlight  are  these  mountains 
of  soft  crimson  snow!  The  sun  hath  set,  and  even  more 
beautiful  are  the  bright-starred  nights  of  winter,  than  sum- 
mer in  all  its  glories  beneath  the  broad  moons  of  June ! 
Through  the  woods  of  Windermere,  from  cottage  to  cot- 
tage, by  coppice-pathways  winding  up  to  dwellings  among 
the  hill-rocks,  where  the  birch-trees  cease  to  grow, — 

"  Nodding'  their  heads,  heforc  us  go, 
The  merry  minstrelsy." 

They  sing  a  salutation  at  every  door,  familiarly  naming 
old  and  young  by  their  Christian  names;  and  the  eyes  that 


CHRISTMAS    DREAMS.  23 

look  upward  from  the  vales  to  the  hanging  huts  among 
the  plats  and  clitrs,  see  the  shadows  of  the  dancers  ever 
and  anon  crossing  the  light  of  the  starlike  window  ;  and 
the  merry  music  is  heard  like  an  echo  dwelling  in  the  sky  ! 
across  those  humble  thresholds  often  did  we  on  Christmas 
nights  of  yore — wandering  through  our  solitary  sylvan 
haunts,  under  the  branches  of  trees  within  whose  hollow 
trunk  the  squirrel  slept — venture  in,  unasked,  pcrha|)s, 
but  not  unwelcome  ;  and  in  the  kindly  spirit  of  the  season, 
did  our  best  to  merrify  the  festival  by  tale  or  song.  And 
now  that  we  behold  them  not,  are  all  those  woods,  and 
cliffs,  and  rivers,  and  tarns,  and  lakes,  as  beautiful  as 
when  they  softened  and  brightened  beneath  our  living  eyes 
half-creating,  as  they  gazed,  the  very  paradise  that  thoy 
worshipped!  And  are  all  those  hearths  as  bright  as  of 
yore,  without  the  shadow  of  our  figure?  And  the  roofs, 
do  they  ring  as  mirthfully,  though  our  voice  be  forgotten? 

But  little  cause  have  we  to  lament  that  that  paradise  is 
now  to  us  but  as  remembered  poetry — poetry  got  by  heart — 
deeply  engraven  there — and  to  be  read  at  any  thoughtful 
hour  we  choose — charged  deeper  and  deeper  still  with  old 
memories  and  new  inspirations.  The  soul's  best  happiness 
is  independent  of  time  and  place.  Such  accidents  touch  it 
not — they  "  offer  not  even  any  show  of  violence,  it  being 
a  thing  so  majestical."  And  lo  !  another  new  series  of 
Christmas  festivals  hastens  been  born!  For  there  are 
our  own  living  flowers  in  our  family  garland !  And  as 
long  as  he,  who  gave  them  their  bloom  and  their  balm, 
averts  not  from  them  or  us  the  sunshine  of  his  counte- 
nance, content — oh  !  far  beyond  content — would  we  be 
with  this,  the  most  sacred  of  all  religious  festivals,  were  it 
even  to  be  holdcn  by  us  far  apart  from  them  in  some  dun- 
geon's depth  ! 

Ay — well  may  we  say — in  gratitude,  not  in  pride — 
though,  at  such  n  sight,  pride  might  be  thought  but  a  venial 
sin  within  a  father's  heart, — "  There  is  our  Christmas 
rose" — while  a  blush  brightens  the  beauty  of  a  face  that 
we  will  call  "  fair,  not  pale,"  and  brighter  and  softer  than 
the  leaves  of  any  rose,  the  ringlets  dance  over  her  fore- 
head to  the  breeze  of  joy,  and  bliss  and  innocence  give 
themselves  vent  in  one  of  our  own  Scotia's  pleasant  but 
pathetic  songs ! 


24  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

But  the  heart  hugs  such  treasures  as  these  in  secret,— 
and  if  revealed  at  all  to  other  eyes,  it  must  be  by  but  a 
fleeting  and  a  partial  light.  Few  words  are  needed  to 
awaken,  before  parental  eyes,  the  visions  now  stealing  be- 
fore mine — and,  broken  and  all  imperfect  though  these 
efflisions  may  be,  yet  may  they  touch  with  pensive  plea- 
sure some  simple  hearts,  that  recognise  the  expression  of 
some  of  their  own  emotions, — similar,  or  the  same, — 
although  life  and  its  circumstances  may  have  been  diffe- 
rent,— for  in  every  single  sentence,  if  it  be  but  sincere,  a 
word  or  two  may  be  found,  that  shall  awaken  some  com- 
plete reminiscence  of  joy,  as  the  striking  but  of  two  notes 
at  once  fills  ear  and  heart  with  a  well  known-tune,  and 
gives  it  the  full  power  of  all  the  melody. 

The  lamp  glimmers  as  it  would  expire, — the  few  embers 
are  red  and  low, — and  those  are  the  shadows  of  moonlight 
on  the  walls.  How  deep  a  hush  !  Let  me  go  and  hear 
them  breathing  in  their  sleep, — and  whisper — for  it  will  not 
disturb  them — a  prayer  by  the  bedside  of  my  children. 
To-morrow  is  Christmas  day — and  thankful  am  I  indeed 
to  Providence ! 


CHRISTMAS  PRESENTS. 

(Black wood's  Edinburgh  Magazine,  1828.) 


A  BANK  of  flowers  is  certainly  one  of  the  most  gor- 
geous sights  beneath  the  sun ;  but  what  is  it  to  that 
board  of  books?  Our  old  eyes  are  dazzled  with  the 
splendour,  and  are  forced  to  seek  relief  and  repose  on 
the  mild  moreen  of  those  window-curtains,  whose  drapery 
descends  as  simply  as  the  garb  of  a  modest  quakeress. 
Even  then,  all  the  colours  of  the  rainbow  continue 
dancing  on  their  orbs,  and  will  permit  them  to  see  no- 
thing in  its  true  light.  But  now,  the  optical  spectra 
evanish — our  sight  becomes  reconciled  to  the  various 
glitter — the  too  powerful  blaze  seems  tamed  down — the 
lustre  of  the  hues  subside,  and  we  can  bear,  without 
winking,  or  placing  our  fingers  before  our  face,  to  keep  a 
steady  gaze  on  the  bright  confusion.  Why,  bookbinding 
has  become  a  beautiful  art !  Chance  it  was  that  flung 
together  all  those  duodecimos,  post-octavos,  quartos,  and 
folios,  of  kid,  calf,  silk,  satin,  velvet,  russia,  morocco, — 
white,  gray,  green,  blue,  yellow,  violet,  red,  scarlet, 
crimson — yet  what  painter,  with  the  most  glorious  eye 
for  colour,  ever  with  laborious  study,  cheered  by  fits  of 
sudden  inspiration,  pictured  a  board  of  fruits,  although 
worthy  of  the  trees  of  Paradise,  of  more  multifarious 
splendour  ? 

Lovers  are  we,  and  have  been  nil  our  life  long,  of 
charming,  of  divine  Simplicity.  But  Simplicity  is  a 
lady,  not  only  of  fine  taste,  but — would  you  believe  it? — 
of  rich  imagination.  Often  have  we  seen  her  gazing 
with  rapt  spirit  and  tearful  eyes  on  the  setting  sun,  on 
the  sea,  on  cataracts,  on  regiments  of  cavalry,  on  an 

VOL.  I.  3 


26  Wilson's  miscellaiseous  writings. 

English  county  of  groves,  woods,  gardens,  orchards, 
rivers,  plains,  noblemen's  and  gentlemen's  old  family- 
mansions,  steeple-towers,  churches,  abbeys,  cathedrals. 
We  have  seen  Simplicity,  like  a  nun  at  worship,  reading 
Isaiah,  and  Homer,  and  Dante,  and  Ariosto,  and  Tasso, 
and  Shakspeare,  and  Milton,  and  Maga.  Simplicity 
loves  all  the  riches  and  splendour  of  the  east  and  of  the 
west,  the  north  and  the  south.  Her  hair  she  loves  not 
to  adorn  with  many  diamonds — one  single  solitary  jewel 
on  her  forehead,  like  a  star.  But  pale  pearls  are  here 
and  there  interspersed  among  her  locks,  at  once  softening 
and  deepening  their  darkness;  they  lie  like  dewdrops  or 
buds  of  white  roses,  along  the  lilies  of  her  breast;  with 
pearls  of  great  price  is  her  virgin  zone  bespangled — and, 
as  she  lifts  her  snow-white  hand,  there  is  a  twinkle  of 
radiance  from  a  stone  that  "  would  ransom  great  kings 
from  captivity !" 

You  understand,  then,  that  there  is  no  reason  in  the 
world,  or  in  the  nature  of  things,  why  Simplicity  should 
not  stand  with  her  arm  in  ours,  leaning  lovingly  on  our 
shoulder — pressing  fondly  on  our  side — and  admire  with 
us  the  mild,  meek,  soft,  gentle,  tender,  dim,  dazzling, 
bold,  fierce,  fiery,  corruscating,  cometary,  planetary, 
lunar,  solar,  aurora  borealis  and  lightning-like  radiance 
of  that  sea-green  board,  mad  with  the  magnificence  of 
that  myriad-minded  multitude  of — 

CHRISTMAS    PRESENTS. 

But  let  Simplicity  by  and  by  turn  her  eyes  towards 
that  opening  door — for  footsteps  are  on  the  stair — and 
like  hours  are  they  coming — all  dressed  in  white  raiment, 
as  betits  and  bespeaks  their  innocence — a  chosen  band  of 
maidens,  to  receive  from  the  hands  of  good  old  Father 
Christopher — each  an  appro[)riate  volume  or  volumes  to 
add  to  her  little  library,  growing  by  degrees,  year  after 
year,  like  a  garden  that  the  skilful  florist  extends  with  its 
sloping  banks  towards  the  sunny  south, — each  spring 
visiting  a  rarer,  richer  show  of  her  own  fairest  and  most 
favourite  flowers. 

We  are  not  a  married  man,  like  the  writer  of  Christ- 


CIIKISTJIAS    PRESENTS.  27 

mas  Dreams — yet  dearly  do  we  love  the  young — yea  the 
young  of  all  animals — the  young  swallows  twittering  from 
their  straw-built  shed — the  young  lambs  bleating  on  the 
lea,  the  young  bees,  God  bless  them,  on  their  first  flight 
away  off  to  the  heather — the  young  butterflies,  who,  born 
in  the  morning,  will  die  of  old  age  ere  night — the  young 
salmon-fry  glorying  in  the  gravel  at  the  first  feeling  of 
their  fins — the  young  adders  basking,  ere  they  can  bite, 
in  the  sun,  as  yet  unconscious,  like  sucking  satirists,  of 
their  stings — young  pigs,  pretty  dears,  all  a-squeak  with 
their  curled  tails  after  prolific  grum|)hy — young  lions  and 
tigers,  charming  cubs,  like  very  Christian  children,  nuz- 
zling in  their  nurse's  breast — young  devils — if  you  will — 
ere  Satan  hath  sent  them  forth  to  Sin,  who  keeps  a 
fashionable  boarding-school  in  Hades,  and  sends  up  into 
the  world  above-ground  only  her  finished  scholars. 

But  lo !  North's  fair  family — all  children  of  his  old 
age !  Yes,  the  offspring  they  are  of  his  dearest — his 
chosen — his  faithful — his  bosom-friends  !  There,  daugh- 
ters of  delight — there  is  a  shower  of  kisses  to  bedew  the 
beloved  heads  of  you  all — and  now  be  seated  in  a  circle — 
look  all  as  grave  as  you  possibly  can  for  those  struggling 
smiles — no  quizzing  of  our  new  Christmas  wig — and 
first,  and  before  we  begin  to  distribute, 

"  Pure  hcaltliy  children  of  the  God  of  heaven," 

in  your  hearts  as  in  ours,  let  there  be  a  short  silent 
prayer. 

Now  for  business. 

Emily  Callander — oldest  of  the  young — and  tallest  too 
— for,  in  truth,  thou  art  as  a  cedar — for  thee  have  we 
selected  Lights  and  Shadows  of  Scottish  Life,  The  Trials 
of  Margaret  Lyndsay,  and  The  Foresters.  The  first  is 
bound — as  thy  sweet  eyes  see — in  variegated  silk — too 
ornamental  as  some  might  haply  think — but  not  so  thou  — 
for  thou  knowest  that  the  barest  field  in  all  Scotland  is  not 
without  its  little  flowers — daisies,  and  gowans,  and  clover, 
and  primroses  in  their  short  vernal  day — and  that  her 
richest  fields  are  all  a  glow  as  at  evening  the  western 
heavens.     Margaret  Lyndsay,  you  see,  my  love,  is  hound 


28  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

in  satin — but  not  of  the  riciicst  sort — the  colour  is  some- 
thing qualvcrish — but  we  know  you  like  that — and  the 
narrow  ornaments  round  the  sides  you  will  find  to  be 
either  flowers  or  stars — for,  in  truth,  flowers  and  stars 
are  not  dissimilar — for  they  both  have  rays — but  dew 
brightens  the  one  while  the  other  it  bedims  into  beauty. 
The  Foresters  are  bound  in  green  linen — and  these  yellow 
trees,  emblazoned  upon  such  a  ground,  as  if  autumn  had 
tinted  them,  have  a  good  effect — have  they  not? — So, 
sweetest  and  best — a  kiss  of  thy  forehead — sure  a  more 
graceful  curtsy  was  never  seen — and  it  will  make  the 
author,  who  is  my  very  dear  friend — whom  I  love  more 
than  I  can  venture  to  express,  and  whom  I  have,  on  that 
account,  placed  foremost  now — and  not  for  his  mere 
merits — proud  and  happy,  too,  to  be  told  with  what  a 
smile  Emily  Callander  I'eceived  his  volumes — -works  we 
were  going  to  say,  but  that  is  too  prodigious  a  word  for 
such  efl^usions — and  one  smile  from  her  will  to  him  be 
worth  all  the  chaff"  and  chatter  of  all  the  critics  in  Cock- 
aigne. 

Margaret  Wilson  ! — thou  rising  star — let  thine  arms 
drop  from  around  the  necks  of  these  two  sweet  sup- 
porters, and  come  gliding  forth  within  touch  of  the  old 
man,  that  he  may  lay  his  withered  hand  upon  the  lovely 
lustre  of  thy  soft-braided  hair.  There — hold  them  fast  to 
your  bosom — and  let  not  one  of  all  the  five  slip  from 
your  embracing  arms.  Wordsworth's  Works  !  You  re- 
member— and  never  will  forget — the  mountains  at  the 
head  of  Windermere — behind  whose  peaked  summits  the 
sun  sets — and  Elleray — but  why  that  haze  within  those 
eyes? — "A  few  natural  tears  thou  sheddest,  but  wipest 
them  soon" — at  the  sudden  sound  of  that  si)ell-like  home 
— so  let  that  key  remain  untouched — ay,  there  is  thy 
bosom  all  filled  with  poetry  !  with  poetry  ofien — "  not  of 
this  noisy  world,  but  silent  and  divine,"  with  happy  hymns 
for  sunshine,  and  mournful  elegies  for  moonlight — with 
lyrics  that  might  be  set  to  such  music  as  the  lark  sings 
Jiigh  in  heaven — with  odes  that  might  be  fitly  chanted  to 
the  sofiened  voice  of  the  waterfall — with  ballads  such  as 
Bessy  Bell  or  Mary  Gray  might  have  sung  "in  their 
bower  on  yonder  green," — or  Helen  Irvine,  as  she  "sat 


CHRISTMAS    PRESENTS.  29 

upon  the  banks  of  Kirtle," — or  thou  thyself,  sweeter 
singer  than  them  all,  when  willing — as  I  have  seen  thee 
— to  charm  with  change  thy  father's  ear,  after  the  Bride's 
Maid's  Chorus.  But  thou  hast  wept  for  Ruth — and  for 
Emmeline — and  for  that  lovely  creature, 

"  Her  mute  companion,  as  it  lay, 
In  love  and  pity  at  her  feet " 

And  I  have  seen  thee  shiver  with  delight,  in  the  beauty  of 
the  sudden  apparition,  when 

"Came  gliding  in  with  lovely  gleam, 
Came  gliding  in  serene  and  slow, 
Soft  and  silent  as  a  dream, 
That  solitary  doe  I" 

Yes — thou  mayest,  unblamed,  place  such  poetry  on  the 
very  same  shelf,  Margaret,  with  thy  Bible  ;  for  the  word 
of  God  itself  is  better  understood  by  hearts  softened  and 
sublimed  by  strains  inspired  into  the  souls  of  great  poets 
by  devoutcst  contemplation  of  his  works.  Therefore, 
child, 

"  with  gentle  hand 
Touch,  for  there  is  a  spirit  in  the  leaves  I" 

Fanny  Allardyce — do  not  make  me  fall  in  love  with  en- 
vious eyes,  by  looking  so  on  Margaret's  bosom — full  of 
beautiful  books — bound  as  they  are  in  crimson — for  that 
is  the  light  of  setting  suns;  and  although  William  Words- 
worth be  often  but  as  a  lowly  pastoral  poet  piping  in  the 
shade,  yet  as  often  is  he  like  the  blind  John  Milton,  who 
sung  in  his  glorious  darkness  of  Paradise — and  the  Courts  of 
Heaven.  For  here,  for  thee,  my  pensive  Frances,  are  the 
Poetical  Works  of  Edmund  Spenser,  in  five  volumes,  pre- 
sented to  me  by  my  friend  Mr.  Pickering  of  London — and 
he  will  not  be  displeased  with  me  for  transferring  them  to 
the  love  of  one  who  is  in  good  truth  "  like  the  heavenly 
Una  with  her  milk-white  lamb."  You  will  find  much — 
and  many  things  in  the  Fairy  Queen,  that  even  your  al- 
most fully  expanded  intellect  and  imagination  will  not  yet 

3^ 


30  AVILSO^^'S    MISCELLANEOUS    WHITINGS. 

understand — yet  little,  and    few  thini^s   that    your    heart 
nevertheless  will   not  feel — and   not  the  less  touchingly, 
because  love  will  be  mixed  with  wonder,  and  pity  given  to 
what  is  at  once  sorrowful  and  strange.     You  have  already 
read   the  Comus  of  Milton — and  love  and   admire — and 
would  wish  to  kneel  down   at  her  feet — the  lady  whose 
spotless   innocence  preserves  her  from  the  fiends  of  that 
haunted   wood.     She  and   the  Una  of  the  Fairy   Queen 
might   be  sisters;   nor,  were  such  creatures  as  they  ever 
to  walk  over  our  earth,  could  they  turn  away  their  gracious 
and  benignant  smiles  from  such  a  maiden  as  thou  art — for 
thou  too  art  without  spot  or  blemish — nor  could  force  nor 
fraud  prevail  against  thee;  for,  true  it  is  as  words  of  holy 
writ,  that  "  a  thousand  liveried  angels  lacquey  thee,"  and 
that  vice  and  wickedness  could  not  live  in  an  atmosphere 
purified  by  the  breath  of  innocence  from  such  lips  as  thine  ! 
Harriet  Brisbane — thou  hast  a  heroic  spirit — yet  a  heart 
formed  for  peace.     And  thou  lookest,  with  that  fine,  high, 
bold  brow  of  thine, — yet  perfectly   feminine, — and   with 
those  large  hazel  eyes,  so  mild,  yet  magnanimous, — and 
that  mass  of  nearly  black  hair,  that,  but  for  the  Christmas 
roses  round  it,  would  seem  almost  sullen — at  least  most 
melancholy, — thou  lookest,  we  say,  like  what  thou  indeed 
art,  a  true  descendant  of  now  beatified  spirits,  who,  in  the 
old  days  of  persecution,  sang  hymns  of  rejoicing  when  tied 
to  the  stake,  and  their  bodies  shrivelling  in  the  fire.    Dear 
virgin  martyr!  take  and  keep  for  our  sake,  the  exquisite 
Roman  tale  of  Valerius.     There  you  will  read  how  one, 
whom  I  could  fancy  like  thy  very  self,  in  face,  figure,  and 
character,  a  virgin  named  Athanasia,  touched  at  the  soul 
by  the  religion  of  Jesus,  did  disencumber  herself  of  all  the 
beautiful  and  imaginative  vanities  of  the  old  mythological 
faith,  and,  fearless  of  the  pitchy  fire,  and  of  the  ravening 
lion,  did  fold  the  cross  unto  her  bosom,  and  became  trans- 
figured from  innocence  into  i)iety.     The  tale  will  not  make 
these  calm  eyes  of  thine  shed  many,  if  any  tears  ;  but  ever 
and  anon  as  they  follow  the  fortunes  of  her  who  hath  Ibr- 
saken  the  service  of  idols  and   false  deities,  to  become  a 
priestess  of  the  only  one,  living,  and  true  God,  they  will 
be  uplifted  "in  thoughts  that  lie  too  deep  for  tears" — slowly 
and   solemnly,   and    most   beautifully — to   the   lieaven   of 


CnUISTMAS    PRESENTS.  31 

heavens  !  Thou,  too,  take — thou  high-souled  daughter  of 
a  high-souled  sire — tliis  other  book,  bound  in  brightest 
scarlet — for  you  have  heard,  thai  a  blind  man  once  said, 
that  he  conceived  scarlet  to  be  like  the  sound  of  a  trumpet, 
— and  all  emblazoned  vviih  the  arms  of  adverse  nations, 
Specimens  of  Spanish  Ballads,  celebrating  the  exploits  of 
the  Campeador,  and  other  heroes,  against  the  Saracens ; 
and  all  the  high  and  wild  warfare  that,  for  centuries,  made 
the  rivers  run  red  with  mingled  Castilian  and  Moorish 
blood.  The  old  Spanish  ballads  are  like  fragments  of  fine 
bold  martial  music,  in  their  own  tongue;  but  Mr.  Lock- 
liart  is  a  poet  "of  strength  and  state;"  and  in  his  noble 
verses,  your  eyes  dazzle  at  the  brightness  of  the  Spanish 
sword,  tempered  in  the  Ebro,  and  can  scarce  endure  the 
flashing  of  the  Moorish  scymitar.  You  read  his  ballads 
in  the  same  mood  of  mind  with  which  you  hear  the  music- 
band  of  a  regiment  of  cavalry — say  the  Scots  Grays — 
hundreds  of  heroes  following  on — on — on — with  their  glit- 
tering casques,  and  each  with  a  sabre,  erst  red  perchance 
at  Waterloo,  in  his  strong  right  hand. 

Aha,  Jane!  my  pretty  little  rosy-cheeked,  dark-eyed, 
curly-pated  Jane — can  you  control  no  longer  the  impa- 
tience, which,  for  this  last  half  hour,  you  have  not  attempted 
to  conceal  ]  And  are  you  there  unbeckoned  upon  my 
knee,  and,  with  uplifted  frock,  ready  to  receive  into  your 
lap  your  destined  prize?  There,  thou  imp — thou  elf — thou 
fairy — there  is  a  Christmas-Box  for  thee,  on  which  thou 
wilt  stare  out  thine  eyes — having  first  filled  them  many 
times  and  oft — now  with  sighing,  and  now  with  laughing 
tears.  You  remember  that  I  gave  you  last  year  the  nicest 
of  all  little  books,  about  the  strangest  and  most  curious 
pranky  little  beings  that  ever  were  born — "  Fairy  Legends 
of  the  South  of  Ireland  ;"  and  do  you  know  that  the  Christ- 
mas-Box is  from  the  same  gentleman — you  know  his  name 
— T.  Crofion  Croker ;  and  that  it  is  published  by  that  Mr. 
Ainsworth,  now  a  bookseller  in  London,  who  carried  you 
in  his  arms  into  the  boat,  you  remember,  and  kept  you 
there  all  the  time  we  were  sailing  about  on  the  lake?  but 
he  is  a  faithless  man,  and  cannot  be  your  husband,  as  he 
said  he  would,  for  he  has  married  a  beautiful  wife  of  his 
own;  and — only  think  of  his  impudence! — sent  you  this 


32  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

Christmas-Box  to  purchase  your  forgiveness.  I  assure  you 
it  is  the  nicest  book  for  a  child  like  you  that  ever  was; 
for,  do  you  know,  that  you  are  in  your  teens  now,  and, 
for  a  young  child,  are  getting  quite  an  old  v/oman.  Only 
look  at  that  picture  (the  book  you  will  find  is  full  of  de- 
lightful pictures)  of  the  Enchanted  Ass  !  Saw  you  ever 
any  thing  so  funny?  Read  the  story  about  it,  and  you 
will  die  of  laughing.  But,  fond  as  thou  art  of  laughter, 
and  fun  and  noise — yet  art  thou,  too,  my  most  merry  mad- 
cap, at  times,  like  all  the  happiest,  not  disinclined  to  gentle 
weeping — therefore,  read  the  story  of  "  Little  Willie  Bell," 
— and  then  lay  it  down  and  think  upon  it — and  weep  and 
wonder  if  the  "  pale  boy  with  the  long  curled  hair,"  was 
indeed  a  ghost !  Whether,  child,  there  be  any  ghosts  or 
no,  it  is  not  for  me — old  man  as  I  am — to  say  ;  but  if  there 
be,  they  visit  us  not  unpermitted,  and  you,  my  innocent, 
need  not  be  afraid,  were  something  you  thought  a  ghost 
to  draw  the  curtains  of  your  little  bed  at  night,  and  look  in 
upon  you,  with  a  pale  pale  face,  and  all  dressed  in  white, 
even  like  the  clothes  in  which  people  are  buried.  For  it  is 
only  to  the  bad  that  dreadful  ghosts  appear,  sometimes,  it 
is  said,  driving  them  mad  by  glaring  on  them  with  their 
eyes,  and  pointing  to  wounds,  all  streaming  with  blood,  in 
their  side  or  breast ;  but  the  ghosts  that  glide  before  the 
eyes  of  the  good,  whether  they  are  shut  in  sleep,  or  open 
in  what  we  call  a  waking  dream,  are  the  gentlest  beings 
that  ever  walked  beneath  the  light  of  the  moon  and  stars 
— and  it  would  make  your  heart  to  sing  within  you,  were 
your  eyes  to  fall  on  their  faces — pale  though  they  might 
be — as  upon  the  faces  of  angels,  who  were  once  Christians 
on  earth,  sent,  to  bless  the  slumbers  of  little  pious  children, 
from  heaven.  After  "  Little  Willie  Bell,"  thou  must  read 
"The  Fairy  and  the  Peach  Tree,"  written  by  Mr.  Ains- 
worth  himself — and  you  will  know  from  it — what  you 
were  too  young  and  too  much  in  love  with  him  that  long- 
ago  summer  to  know — that  he  is  a  truly  good  man,  and,  I 
will  add,  Jane,  a  writer  of  fine  fancy  and  true  feeling. — 
What,  off  and  away  to  the  window  without  a  single  kiss 
— to  hold  u[)  the  pretty  pictures,  one  after  another  in  the 
sunshine  ! 

Caroline  Graham  !    Nay — Caroline,  no  far-off  fiirtation 


CHRISTMAS    PRESENTS.  33 

behind  backs  with  such  an  old  quiz  as  Christopher  North. 
There  you  are — bounding  stately  up  from  your  afTcctedly- 
humble  bending  down,  like  a  tall  harebell,  that,  depressed 
more  than  seemed  natural  with  a  weight  of  dew,  among 
whose  sweets  the  bees  are  murmuring,  all  of  a  sudden  lifts 
itself  up  from  the  greensward,  and,  to  the  passing  zephyr, 
shakes  its  blue  blossoms  in  the  sunshine.  VVhat !  a  basket 
— shall  I  call  it — or  rather  a  net  of  dense  hair — of  your 
own  elegant  handy-work  no  doubt — lined  with  what  would 
seem  to  be  either  delicate  light-blue  satin  or  woven  dew — 
to  receive — what  think  ye?  Why,  all  the  souvenirs — 
there  they  go,  one  after  another — like  so  many  birds  of 
soft  or  bright  plumage,  not  unwillingly  dancing  into  the 
cage.  There  goes  the  "Forget  Me  Not,'' — one  of  the 
fairest  flutterers  of  them  all,  a  bird  of  beautiful  plumage 
and  sweet  song.  Why  so  intent  your  eyes,  my  Caroline, 
on  the  very  first  page  of  your  first  Christmas  present? 
Ha!  Stephanoff's  picture  of  the  Bridal  Morning!  There 
she  sits,  surveying  in  her  mirror,  which  cannot  well  flatter, 
what  is  so  finely  framed — that  figure,  with  bashful  pride, 
which  one  about  to  rescue  her  to  himself  from  an  adoring 
world  will  gaze  upon,  and  scarcely  dare  to  embrace,  with 
the  trembling  ecstasy  of  devoted  passion.  But  hush,  hush  ! 
Thy  cheek,  alternately  rosy-red  and  lily-pale,  each  flower 
alike  "  love's  proper  hue,"  warns  me  to  respect — to  vene- 
rate the  unconcealable  secret  of  innocent  nature — so — so! 
Not  a  word — not  a  look  more,  bright  Caroline !  of  the 
"  Forget  Me  Not" — or  of  the  "  Bridal  Morning,"  except 
that — now  you  have  recovered  from  the  confusion  which 
some  youth  or  other  might  understand  perfectly,  but  of 
which  the  old  man  knows  nothing — except  that  Mr.  Fre- 
deric Shoberl,  the  editor,  is  a  pleasant  gentleman,  and  Mr. 
Ackermann,  the  publisher,  a  producer  of  many  amiable 
elegancies — many  trifles  that  touch  the  heart,  and  not  a 
few  more  serious,  though  haply  not  more  salutary  works, 
— for  strong  nourishment  can  be  distilled  from  flowers; 
and  there  is  a  spirit  with  which  many  of  his  literary  friends 
are  imbued,  reminding  one  of  these  lines  of  Wordsworth — 

Tlie  device 
To  each  and  all  might  well  belong ; 


34  AVILSOIS'S    MISCELLANEOUS    WRITINGS. 

It  is  tlic  spirit  of  Paradise 
Tliat  prompts  such  works ;  a  spirit  strong, 
That  gives  to  all  tlie  self-same  bent, 
When  life  is  wise  and  innocent. 

A  large  paper  copy  of  the  "  Literary  Souvenir,"  a 
perfect  gem,  Caroline,  and  set,  after  my  own  fancy,  in 
silver  and  gold.  Look  at  the  "  Duke  and  Duchess  read- 
ing Don  Quixote" — an  imagination  of  that  fine  genius, 
the  American  Leslie  !  Let  but  a  few  ripening  suns  roll 
on,  and  thou  thyself,  the  Grahame,  wilt  be  as  rich,  as 
rare,  as  royal,  as  queenlike  a  beauty,  as  she  who,  uncon- 
sciously obeying  the  judgments,  the  feelings,  and  the  fan- 
cies, of  her  lofty  and  heroic  lord,  is  there  seen  dreaming 
with  a  smile  of  the  doughty  deeds  of  that  inimitable  crazed 
whom  Cervantes  created.  I,  for  one,  know  not  whether 
to  raise  up  or  run  down  the  Spirit  of  Romance  and 
Chivalry. 

Mr.  Alaric  Watts  it  was  who  first  called  upon  the  other 
Fine  Arts  to  aid  Poetry  in  beautifying  all  the  souvenirs — 
the  happy  name  of  his  own  "  bright  consummate"  Annual 
Flower — being,  to  our  ear,  the  best  expression  of  the  aim 
and  meaning  of  them  all.  Himself  an  elegant  writer — 
elegance  is  the  peculiar  characteristic  of  his  souvenirs; 
but  an  elegance  congenial  with  the  truth,  and  simplicity, 
and  the  force  of  nature.  Here,  my  Caroline — into  the 
magic  web  it  goes — bound  in  violet — for  that  is  a  colour 
that  is  felt  to  be  beautiful,  whether 

"  By  mossy  stone,  half  hidden  to  the  eye," 

or  on  the  open  and  sunny  bank, — all  by  its  single  self — 
or  easily  distinguishable,  unpresuming  though  it  be,  amid 
the  brightest  bouquet  that  e'er  bloomed  on  the  bosom  of 
beauty. 

Love  and  Friendship  are  sisters,  and  there  is  their  joint 
"  Ofl^ering,"— although  Love,  as  usual,  is  shame-faced, 
and  conceals  her  name.  Tlie  editor,  I  have  heard,  is 
Mr.  Charles  Knight, — and  1  believe  it;  taste,  and  sensi- 
bility, and  genius,  have  been  brought  to  the  work.  It  bears 
dreamy  j)erusal  well — and  is  like  a  collection  of  musical 
pieces,  in  which,  by  a  certain  rare  felicity,  the  composi- 
tions of  harmonists,  comparatively  little  known  to  fame, 


CHRISTMAS  PRESENTS.  35 

successfully  rival  the  strains  of  the  most  famous.  Thus, 
Southey's  Grand  Funeral  Song  for  the  Princess  Charlotte 
of  Wales  does  not  disincline  us,  at  its  close,  to  open 
our  ears  to  the  pathetic  elegies  of  Moultrie, — Pringle 
and  Praed  touch  the  harp  with  a  careless,  but  no  unmas- 
terly  hand — and  there  is  one  song  at  least  by  Hervey, — 

"  Come  touch  the  harp,  my  gentle  one," 

"  beautiful  exceedingly," — at  least  so  it  would  be,  my 
Caroline,  if  sung  by  thy  voice  when  the  fire  was  low,  and 
this  study  of  mine,  visited  occasionally,  even  as  at  present 
it  is  visited,  by  the  best  and  fairest,  "  now  in  glimmer,  and 
now  in  gloom,"  echoed  to  that  voice  which  some  have 
compared,  in  the  variety  of  its  thick-gushing  richness,  to 
that  of  the  nightingale — but  which  I  do  then  most  dearly 
love  to  listen  to,  when,  in  its  clear-singing  and  unornament- 
ed  risings  and  falls,  without  one  single  intermediate  grace, 
shake,  or  quaver,  it  doth,  to  my  ears,  still  ready  to  catch 
the  tones  that  awaken  ancient  memories,  most  of  all  resem- 
ble the  song  of  Scotia's  darling,  the  Linty,  as,  by  the  edge 
of  some  birken  shaw,  it  hymns  onwards,  beginning  at  the 
hour  of  twilight, — its  melody  becoming  still  softer  and 
sweeter,  as  if  beneath  the  mellowing  dews — and  then,  as 
if  the  bird  wished  to  escape  the  eye  of  the  Star  of  Eve, 
soon  about  to  rise,  all  of  a  sudden  hushed — and  the 
songster  itself  dropped  into  the  broomy  brake,  or  flitted 
away  into  the  low  edge-trees  of  the  forest ! — There — let 
me  gently  place  the  "  Amulet"  in  a  hand  fair  even  as  that 
of  the  Lady  of  Ilkdale — "  a  phantom  of  delight,"  that  will 
look  upon  you,  Caroline,  almost  like  your  own  image  in 
a  mirror,  if  you  but  allow  the  "  Amulet"  to  open  of  its 
own  accord — for  often  and  long  have  I  gazed  upon  that 
matchless  elegance — if  indeed  elegance  be  not  too  feeble 
a  word  for  one  so  captivating  in  her  conscious  accom- 
plishments of  art,  so  far  more  captivating  in  her  uncon- 
scious graces  of  nature.  Maiden  like  thyself  is  she — 
thine  elder  sister,  Caroline — though  thou  art  an  only  child 
— but  the  "  Morning  Walk"  displays  the  easy  dignity  of 
the  high-born  matron — the  happy  mother  teaching,  it  may 
be,  her  first-born  son — the  heir  of  an  ancient  and  noble 
house — to  brush  away,  with  his  gladsome  footsteps,  the 


36  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

dews  from  the  flowers  and   grass  of  his  own  illustrious 
father's  wide-spread  dennesnes ! 

A  fine  genius  hast  thou,  Caroline,  for  painting;  and 
who  of  all  the  old  masters,  whose  works  line  that  long 
gallery  in  the  Castle,  .surpasses  in  art  or  nature  the  works 
of  our  own  Lawrence,  pride  of  his  nation  and  of  his  age? 
The  gayest  heart,  my  Caroline,  when  its  gaiety  is  that  of 
innocence,  is  likewise  often,  when  need  is,  the  most  grave; 
and  that  such  a  heart  is  thine,  I  saw  that  night,  with 
solemn  emotions,  when,  by  thy  mother's  sick-bed,  thy 
head  was  bowed  down  in  low  sobbing  prayers — therefore 
will  the  "  Amulet"  be  not  the  less,  nay,  far  the  more, 
pleasant  in  thy  privacy,  because  the  word  "  Christian"  is 
on  its  fair  title-page,  a  sacred  word,  not  misapplied,  for 
a  meek  and  unobtrusive  religion  breathes  over  its  leaves 
undying  fragrance ;  so  that  the  "  Amulet"  may  lie  on  the 
couch  of  the  room  where  friends  meet  in  health  and  cheer- 
fulness,— below  the  pillow  of  the  room  where  sickness  lies 
afar  from  sorrow,  and  the  patient  feels  that  no  medicine 
is  better  for  the  weakness  of  the  body  than  that  which 
soothes  and  tranquillises  the  soul. 

Last  of  all — there  is  the  bright-bound,  beautiful  "  Bijou," 
— so  brightly  bound,  that  by  pressing  it  to  thy  bosom,  it 
will  impart  very  warmth,  like  a  gently-burning  fire.  You 
have  been  at  Abbotsford,  Caroline?  Indeed  I  have  a 
notion  that  your  image  has  been  flitting  before  our  great 
romancer's  eyes,  during  more  than  one  of  his  dreams  of 
feminine  firmness  and  force  of  character,  that  affects  the 
shade  without  shunning  the  sunshine,  and  by  its  compo- 
sure in  the  calm,  tells  how  bravely  it  would  stand  the 
storm.  There  is  Sir  Walter  and  his  family,  all  charac- 
teristically figured  in  rustic  guise  by  the  genuis  of  VVilkie. 
And  the  letter  which  gives  the  key  to  the  picture,  you  will 
delight  in,  as  a  perfect  model  of  manly  simplicity, — of  that 
dignified  reserve  with  which  a  great  and  good  man  speaks 
of  himself,  and  those  most  near  and  dear  to  him,  before 
the  world.  You  will  find  there,  too,  that  fragment  of 
Coleridge's  which  you  have  more  than  once  heard  me 
recite  to  you  from  memory — would  that  you  could  hear  it 
murmured  in  the  music  of  his  own  most  poetical  voice, — 
"  The  Wanderings  of  Cain."     Yet  why  should   his  divine 


CHRISTMAS  PRESENTS.  37 

genius  deal  so  frequently  in  fragments?  The  Muse  visits 
his  slumbers  nightly,  but  seems  to  forsake  him  during 
unfinished  dreams.  In  "  Christabelle,"  "  that  singularly 
wild  and  original  poem,"  as  Byron  rightly  called  it,  mys- 
tery is  perhaps  essential ;  and  there  is  a  wonder  that 
ought  never  to  be  broken — a  dim  uncertain  light,  that  is 
"  darkness  visible,"  and  should  neither  be  farther  bright- 
ened nor  obscured.  But  in  the  "  Wanderings  of  Cain," 
the  subject  being  Scriptural,  and  most  ruefully  and  fatally 
true,  the  heart  demands  that  its  emotions  shall  be  set  at 
rest,  and  every  thing  told,  how  dreadful  soever  it  may  be, 
that  the  poet  foresaw  in  the  agonies  of  his  inspiration. 
I  fear  Coleridge  knows  that  he  cannot  conclude  "  The 
Wanderings  of  Cain"  according  to  the  meaning  of  the 
Bible,  and,  therefore,  verily  his  lips  are  mute.  But  then, 
what  exquisite  diction  !  The  imagery  how  simple, — yet 
Oriental  all, — and  placing  us,  as  it  were,  on  the  deserts 
bordering  on  Paradise,  at  whose  gales  now  flamed  the 
fiery  sword  of  the  Cherubim  ! 

And  now,  fairest,  thou  art  released  from  that  attitude 
in  which  thou  hast  so  long  been  standing,  obedient  to  a 
garrulous  old  man — nor  yet  "  thinking  his  prattle  to  be 
tedious,"  for  too  thoroughly  good  art  thou,  my  Caroline, 
to  be  wearied  with  any  attention  which  thy  high  but 
humble  heart  willingly  pays  to  one  who  bears  on  his 
forehead  the  authority  of  gray  hairs. 

Who  now  advances  with  the  pink  sash  so  broad — yet 
not  too  broad — with  timid  though  not  downcast  eyes,  and 
with  footsteps  so  soft,  as  noiseless  as  their  own  shadows? 
Thy  sirname  is  of  no  moment  now — but  thy  Christian 
name  is  Mary — to  my  ear  the  mildest  and  most  musical 
and  most  melancholy  of  all.  Thy  poetical  library  is 
already  well  stored — and  so  is  thy  poetical  memory — for 
the  music  of  sweet  verse  never  enters  there  but  to  abide 
always — meeting  with  melodies  within,  perpetually  in- 
spired by  a  thoughtful  spirit  heeding  all  things  in  silent 
wonder  and  love.  Yes,  Mary,  the  old  man  loves  to  hear 
thy  low  sweet  voice  repeating  some  pure  and  plaintive 
strain  of  Hemans,  whose  finest  verse  is  steeped  in  sound 
so  exquisite,  that  it  sinks  with  new  and  deeper  meanings 
into  the  heart — or  some  feeling   and  fanciful  efiiision  of 

VOL.  I.  4 


38  Wilson's  miscellaneous  avritings. 

the  rich-minded  Landon,  wandering  at  eve,  with  sighs 
and  tears,  amidst  the  scents  of  the  orange-bloom,  and  the 
moonlight  glimmer  that  tames  the  myrtle  bower.  But  at 
present — I  address  thee  as  a  small  historian — and  lo!  here 
are  "  The  Tales  of  a  Grandfather,  being  Stories  taken  from 
Scottish  History,  humbly  inscribed  to  Hugh  Litllejohn !" 

Hugh  Littlojohn  is  about  thine  own  age,  Mary, — and 
pleased  should  I  be  to  see  you  and  him  reposing  together 
on  this  sofa,  reading  off  one  and  the  same  book  ! — one  of 
those  three  pretty  little  volumes !  Great,  long,  broad 
quartos  and  folios,  are  not  for  little,  short,  narrow  readers, 
like  Mary  and  Hugh.  Were  one  of  them,  in  an  attempt  to 
push  it  out  of  its  place  on  the  shelf,  to  tumble  upon  your 
heads,  you  would  all  three  fall  down,  with  the  floor,  into 
the  parlour  below.  But  three  such  tiny  volumes  as  these 
you  may  carry  in  your  bosom  out  to  the  green  knolls, 
when  spring  returns,  and  read  them  on  your  knees  in  the 
sunshine.  Only  you  would  have  to  remember  not  to  leave 
them  there  all  night;  for  on  your  return  to  look  for  them 
in  the  morning,  you  would  lift  up  your  hands  to  see  that 
they  had  been  stolen  by  the  fairies,  after  their  dance  had 
ceased  on  those  yellow  rings.  Children  though  you  be — 
you,  Mary  and  Hugh — yet  it  is  natural  for  you  to  wish  to 
know  something  about  the  great  grown-up  people  of  the 
world — how  they  behave  and  employ  themselves  in  dif- 
ferent countries — all  enlightened,  as  you  know,  however 
distant  from  one  another,  by  the  same  sun.  But  more 
especially  you  love — because  you  are  children — to  be  told 
all  about  the  country  in  which  you  yourselves,  and  your 
father  and  mother,  and  their  father  and  mother,  were  born. 
Dearly  do  your  young  eyes  love  to  pore  over  the  pages  of 
history,  and  your  young  ears  to  hear  the  darker  passages 
explained  by  one  who  knows  every  thing,  because  he  is 
old.  Now,  who  do  you  think  is  the  grandfather  that  tells 
those  tales — and  who  is  Hugh  Littlejohn  to  whom  they 
arc  told  ?  Sir  Walter  Scott,  Mary,  is  the  grandfather, — 
and  Hugh  Littlejohn  is  no  other  than  dear,  sweet,  clever 
Johnny  Lockhart,  whose  health  you  and  I,  and  all  of  us, 
shall  drink  by  and  by  in  a  glass  of  cowslip  wine.  Men  are 
often  desperately  wicked — as  you  who  read  your  Bible 
know — and  that  which  is  commonly  called  history,  is  but 


CHRISTMAS    I'KESEXTS.  39 

a  tale  after  all  of  tears  and  blood — and  the  lalc-tcllcr  too 
often  cares  little  whether  he  is  talking  about  the  good  or 
the  bad,  vices  or  virtues, — na}',  he  too  often  takes  part  with 
the  bad  against  the  good,  and  seems  no  more  to  hate  sin 
because  it  triumphs.  But  Sir  Walter  is  too  good,  too  wise 
a  man  to  do  so — and  as  the  people  of  Scotland  have,  for 
many  hundred  years  been,  on  the  whole,  an  excellent  peo- 
ple, you  will  far  oftener  be  glad  than  sorry  in  reading  their 
history  as  it  is  told  here — and  when  you  have  finished  all 
the  volumes  and  come  to  Finis,  you  will  think — and  there 
will  be  no  harm  in  thinking — that  you  would  rather  be — 
what  you  are — a  little  Scottish  girl,  than  even  an  English 
one — although,  now  that  the  two  kingdoms  have  so  long 
been  united  into  one,  Scottish  and  English  girls  are  all 
sisters;  and  so  on,  indeed,  up  to  the  very  oldest  old 
women. 

Never,  never  ought  the  time  to  come  when  one's  own 
country  is  less  beloved  than  any  other  land.  Neither  you, 
Mary,  nor  Hugh,  must  ever  be  citizens  of  the  world.  Wil- 
liam Tell,  you  have  heard,  was  a  glorious  Swiss  peasant, 
who  made  all  his  countrymen  free,  and  procured  for  them 
liberty  to  live  as  they  liked,  without  a  great  king,  who 
cared  little  about  them,  having  it  in  his  power  to  plague 
and  humble  them  in  their  beautilul  little  cottages  up  among 
the  mountains.  Love  always  and  honour  his  memory — 
but  love  and  honour  still  more  the  memory  of  Sir  William 
Wallace,  because  he  did  the  same  and  more  for  Scot- 
land.  1  declare — John  with  the  lunch-tray  I 


CHRISTOPHER  IN  HIS  SPORTING  JACKET. 

(Blackwood's  Edinburgh  Magazine,  1828.) 


FYTTE    FIRST. 

We  delight,  as  all  the  world  has  long  well  known,  in 
every  kind  of  fishing,  from  the  whale  to  the  minnow;  but 
we  also  delight,  as  all  the  world  now  well  knows,  in  every 
kind  of  fowling,  from  the  roc  to  the  wren.  Not  that  we 
ever  killed  either  a  roc  or  a  wren ;  but  what  comes  to  the 
same  thing,  we  have,  on  two  occasions,  by  design  brought 
down  an  eagle,  and,  on  one  occasion,  accidentally  levelled 
a  tom-tit.  In  short,  we  are  considerable  shakes  of  a  shot; 
and,  should  any  one  of  our  readers  doubt  the  fact,  his 
scepticism  will  probably  be  removed  by  a  perusal  of  the 
following  article. 

There  is  a  fine  and  beautiful  alliance  between  all  pastimes 
pursued  on  flood  and  field  and  fell.  The  principles  in  hu- 
man nature  on  which  they  are  pursued,  arc  in  all  the  same; 
but  those  principles  are  subject  to  infinite  modifications  and 
varieties,  according  to  the  difference  of  individual  and  na- 
tional character.  All  such  pastimes,  whether  followed 
merely  as  pastimes,  or  as  professions,  or  as  the  immediate 
means  of  sustaining  life,  require  sense,  sagacity,  and 
knowledge  of  nature  and  nature's  laws  ;  nor  less,  patience, 
perseverence,  courage  even,  and  bodily  strength  or  acti- 
vity, while  the  spirit  which  animates  and  supports  them  is 
a  spirit  of  anxiety,  doubt,  fear,  hope,  joy,  exultation,  and 
triumph, — in  the  heart  of  the  young  a  fierce  passion, — in 
the  heart  of  the  old  a  passion  still,  but  subdued  and  tamed 


CIIRISTOniER    IN    ins    SPORTING    JACKET.  41 

down,  without,  however,  being  much  dulled  or  deadened, 
by  various  experience  of  all  the  mysteries  of  the  callins;, 
and  by  the  gradual  subsiding  of  all  impetuous  impulses  in 
the  frame  of  all  mortal  men  beyond  perhaps  threescore, 
when  the  blackest  head  will  be  becoming  gray,  the  most 
nervous  knee  less  firmly  knit,  the  most  steely-springed  in- 
step less  elastic,  the  keenest  eye  less  of  a  far- keeker,  and, 
above  all,  the  most  boiling  heart  less  like  a  cauldron  or  a 
crater — yea,  the  whole  man  subject  to  some  dimness  or 
decay,  and,  consequently,  the  whole  duty  of  man  like  the 
new  edition  of  a  book,  from  which  many  passages  that 
formed  the  chief  glory  of  the  cf/i^/o^jm^cf^w  have  been  ex- 
punged, and  the  whole  character  of  the  style  corrected 
indeed,  without  being  improved, — just  like  the  later  editions 
of  the  Pleasures  of  Imagination,  which  were  written  by 
Akenside  when  he  was  about  twenty-one,  and  altered  by 
liim  at  forty — to  the  exclusion  or  destruction  of  many  most 
splcndida  vitia,  by  which  process,  the  poem,  in  our  hum- 
ble opinion,  was  shorn  of  its  brightest  beams,  and  suffered 
disastrous  twilight  and  severe  eclipse — perplexing  critics. 

Now,  seeing  that  these  pastimes  are  in  number  almost 
infinite,  and  infinite  the  varieties  of  human  character,  pray 
what  is  there  at  all  surprising  in  your  being  madly  fond  of 
shooting — and  your  brother  Tom  just  as  foolish  about  fish- 
ing— and  cousin  Jack  perfectly  insane  on  fox-hunting — 
while  the  old  gentleman  your  father,  in  spite  of  wind  and 
weather,  perennial  gout  and  annual  apoplexy,  goes 
a-coursing  of  the  white-hipped  hare  on  the  bleak  Yorkshire 
wolds — and  uncle  Ben,  as  if  just  escaped  from  Bedlam  or 
St.  Luke's,  with  Dr.  Haslam  at  his  heels,  or  with  a  ^cw 
hundred  yards'  start  of  Dr.  Warburton,  is  seen  galloping, 
in  a  Welsh  wig  and  strange  apparel,  in  the  rear  of  a  pack 
of  Lilliputian  beagles,  all  barking  as  if  they  were  as  mad 
as  their  master,  supposed  to  be  in  chase  of  an  invisible 
animal  that  keeps  eternally  doubling  in  field  and  forest — 
"  still  hoped  for,  never  seen,"  and  well  christened  by  the 
name  of  Escape? 

Phrenology  sets  the  question  for  ever  at  rest.  All  peo[)le 
have  thirty-three  faculties.  Now  there  are  but  twenty-four 
letters  in  the  alphabet — yet  how  many  languages — some 
six  thousand  we  believe,  each  of  which   is  susceptible  of 

4> 


42  AVILSOX's    BriSCELLANEOUS    WRITINGS. 

many  dialects!  No  wonder  then  that  you  might  as  well 
try  to  count  all  the  sands  on  the  sea-shore  as  all  the  spe- 
cies of  sportsmen. 

There  is,  therefore,  nothing  to  prevent  any  man  with  a 
large  and  sound  dcvelopcmcnt  from  excelling,  at  once,  in 
rat-catching  and  deer-stalking — from  being  in  short  a  uni- 
versal genius  in  sports  and  j)astimes.  Heaven  has  made 
us  such  a  man. 

Yet  there  seems  to  be  a  natural  course  or  progress  in 
pastimes.  We  do  not  speak  now  of  marbles — or  knuck- 
ling down  at  taw — or  trundling  a  hoop — or  pall-lall — or 
pitch  and  toss— or  any  other  of  the  games  of  the  school 
playground.  We  restrict  ourselves  to  what,  somewhat 
inaccurately  {)erhaps,  are  called  field-sports.  Thus  angling 
seems  the  earliest  of  them  all  in  the  order  of  nature.  There 
the  ncw-brceched  urchin  stands  on  the  low  bridge  of  the 
little  bit  burnie !  and  with  crooked  pin,  baited  with  one  un- 
writhing  ring  of  a  dead  worm,  and  attached  to  a  yarn 
thread,  for  he  has  not  yet  got  into  hair,  «nd  is  years  off 
gut,  his  rod  of  the  more  willow  or  hazel  wand,  there  will 
lie  stand  during  all  his  play-hours,  as  forgetful  of  his  primer 
as  if  the  weary  art  of  printing  had  never  been  invented, 
day  after  day,  week  after  week,  month  after  month,  in 
mute,  deep,  earnest,  j)assionate,  hcart-mind-and-soul- 
engrossing  hope  of  some  time  or  other  catching  a  minnow 
or  a  boardie  !  A  tug — a  tug!  with  face  ten  times  flushed 
and  pale  by  turns  ere  you  could  count  ten,  he  at  last  has 
strength,  in  the  agitation  of  his  fear  and  joy,  to  pull  away 
at  the  monster — and  there  he  lies  in  his  beauty  among  the 
govvans  on  the  greensward,  for  he  has  whappcd  him  right 
over  his  head  and  far  away,  a  fish  a  quarter  of  an  ounce 
in  weight,  and,  at  the  very  least,  two  inches  long  !  Off  he 
(lies,  on  wings  of  wind,  to  his  father,  mother,  and  sisters, 
and  brothers,  and  cousins,  and  all  the  neighbourhood,  hold- 
ing the  fish  aloft  in  both  hands,  still  fearful  of  its  escape, 
and,  like  a  genuine  child  of  corruption,  his  eyes  brighten 
at  the  first  blush  of  cold  blood  on  his  small  fishy-fumy 
fingers.  He  carries  about  with  him,  up  stairs  and  down 
stairs,  his  prey  upon  a  plate  ;  he  will  not  wash  his  hands 
before  dinner,  for  he  exults  in  the  silver  scales  adhering  to 
the   thumb-nail   that  scooped  the  pin  out  of  the  baggy's 


CHRISTOPHER   IN   IIIS   SPORTING   JACKET.  43 

maw — and  at  night,  "  cabin'd,  cribb'd,  confined,"  ho  is 
overheard  murmuring  in  his  sleep,  a  thief,  a  robber,  and  a 
murderer,  in  his  yet  infant  dreams  ! 

From  that  hour  angling  is  no  more  a  delightful  day- 
dream, haunted  by  the  dim  hopes  of  imaginary  minnows, 
but  a  reality — an  art — a  science — of  which  the  flaxen- 
headed  school-boy  feels  himself  to  be  master — a  mystery 
in  which  he  has  been  initiated ;  and  off  he  goes  now,  all 
alone,  in  the  power  of  successful  passion,  to  the  distant 
brook — brook  a  mile  off — with  fields,  and  hedges,  and 
single  trees,  and  little  groves,  and  a  huge  forest  of  six 
acres,  between  and  the  house  in  which  he  is  boarded  or 
was  born  !  There  flows  on  the  slender  music  of  the  sha- 
dowy shallows — there  pours  the  deeper  din  of  the  birch- 
tree'd  waterfall.  The  scared  water-pyet  flits  away  from 
stone  to  stone,  and  dipping,  disappears  among  the  airy 
bubbles,  to  him  a  new  sight  of  joy  and  wonder.  And  oh! 
how  sweet  the  scent  of  the  broom  or  furze,  yellowing  along 
the  braes,  where  leap  the  lambs,  less  happy  than  he,  on 
the  knolls  of  sunshine!  His  grandfather  has  given  him  a 
half-crown  rod  in  two  pieces — yes,  his  line  is  of  hair 
twisted — platted  by  his  own  soon-instructed  little  fingers. 
By  heavens,  he  is  fishing  with  the  fly  !  and  the  Fates,  who, 
grim  and  grisly  as  they  are  painted  to  be  by  full-grown, 
ungrateful,  lying  poets,  smile  like  angels  upon  the  paidler 
in  the  brook,  winnowing  the  air  with  their  wings  into 
western  breezes,  while  at  the  very  first  throw  the  yellow 
trout  ibrsakes  his  fastness  beneath  the  bog-wood,  and  with 
a  lazy  wallop,  and  then  a  sudden  plunge,  and  then  a  race 
like  lightning,  changes  at  once  the  child  into  the  boy,  and 
shoots  through  his  thrilling  and  aching  heart  the  ecstasy 
of  a  new  life  expanding  in  that  glorious  pastime,  even  as  a 
rainbow  on  a  sudden  brightens  up  the  sky.  Fortmia 
favct fortibus — and  with  one  long  pull  and  strong  pull,  and 
pull  all  together,  Johnny  lands  a  twelve-incher  on  the  soft, 
smooth,  silvery  sand  of  the  only  bay  in  all  the  burn  where 
such  an  exploit  was  possible,  and  dashing  upon  him  like 
an  Osprey,  soars  up  with  him  in  his  talons  to  the  bank, 
breaking  his  line  as  he  hurries  off  to  a  spot  of  safety 
twenty  j-ards  from  the  pool,  and  then  flinging  him  down 
on  a  heath-surrounded  plat  of  sheep-nibbled  verdure,  lets 


44  Wilson's  miscellaneous  wkitings. 

him  bounce  about  till  he  is  tired,  and  lies  gasping  with  un- 
frequent  and  feeble  motions,  bright  and  beautiful,  and  glo- 
rious with  all  his  yellow  light,  and  crimson  lustre,  spotted, 
speckled,  and  starred  in  his  scaly  splendour,  beneath  a 
sun  that  never  shone  before  so  dazzlingly ;  but  now  the 
radiance  of  the  captive  creature  is  dimmer  and  obscured, 
for  the  eye  of  day  winks  and  seems  almost  shut  behind 
that  slow-sailing  mass  of  clouds,  composed  in  equal  parts 
of  air,  rain,  and  sunshine. 

Springs,  summers,  autumns,  winters, — each  within  itself 
longer,  by  many  times  longer  than  the  whole  year  of  grown- 
up life  that  slips  at  last  through  one's  fingers  like  a  knot- 
less  thread, — pass  over  the  curled  darling's  brow;  and 
look  at  him  now,  a  straight  and  strengthy  stripling,  in  the 
savage  spirit  of  sport,  springing  over  rock-ledge  after  rock- 
ledge,  nor  heeding  aught  as  he  plashes  knee-deep,  or  waist- 
band-high, through  river-feeding  torrents,  to  the  glorious 
music  of  his  runnina;  and  ringing  reel,  after  a  tongue-hooked 
salmon,  insanely  seeking  with  the  ebb  of  tide,  but  all  in 
vain,  the  white  breakers  of  the  sea.  No  hazel  or  willow 
wand,  no  half-crown  rod  of  ash  framed  by  village  wright, 
is  now  in  his  practised  hands,  of  which  the  very  left  is 
dexterous;  but  a  twenty-feet  rod  of  Phin's,  all  ring-rust- 
ling, and  a-glitter  with  the  preserving  varnish,  liml)er  as 
the  attenuating  line  itself,  and  lithe  to  its  topmost  tenuity 
as  the  elephant's  proboscis — the  hiccory  and  the  horn 
without  twist,  knot,  or  flaw,  from  butt  to  fly,  a  faultless 
taper,  "  fine  by  degrees  and  beautifully  less,"  the  beau 
ideal  of  a  rod  by  the  skill  of  a  cunning  craftsman  to  the 
senses  materialised  !  A  fish — fat,  fair,  and  forty  !  "  She 
is  a  salmon,  therefore  to  be  woo'd — she  is  a  salmon,  there- 
fore to  be  won" — but  shy,  timid,  capricious,  headstrong, 
now  wrathful  and  now  full  of  fear,  like  any  other  female 
whom  the  cruel  artist  has  hooked  by  lip  or  heart,  and,  in 
spite  of  all  her  struggling,  will  bring  to  the  gasp  at  last; 
and  then  with  calm  eyes  behold  her  lying  in  the  shade 
dead  or  worse  than  dead,  fast-fading  and  to  be  rcillumined 
no  more  the  lustre  of  her  beauty,  insensible  to  sun  or 
shower,  even  the  most  perishable  of  all  perishable  things 
in  a  world  of  perishing! — Rut  the  salmon  has  grown 
sulky,  and  must  be  made  to  spring  to  the  plunging  stone. 


CHRISTOniER  IN  HIS  SPORTING  JACKET.  45 

There,  suddenly,  instinct  with  new  passion,  she  shoots  out 
of  the  foam,  like  a  bar  of  silver  bullion  ;  and,  relapsing 
into  the  flood,  is  in  another  moment  at  the  very  head  of 
the  waterfall  !  Give  her  the  butt — give  her  the  butt — or 
she  is  gone  for  ever  with  the  thunder  into  ten  fathom  deep ! 
Now  comes  the  trial  of  your  tackle — and  when  was  Phin 
ever  known  to  fail  at  the  edge  of  clift'  or  cataract  1  Her 
snout  is  southwards — right  up  the  middle  of  the  main  cur- 
rent of  the  hill-born  river,  as  if  she  would  seek  its  very 
course  where  she  was  spawned  !  She  still  swims  swift, 
and  strong,  and  deep — and  the  line  goes,  steady,  boys, 
steady — stiff  and  steady  as  a  Tory  in  the  roar  of  Opposi- 
tion. There  is  yet  an  hour's  play  in  her  dorsal  fin — dan- 
ger in  the  flap  of  her  tail — and  yet  may  her  silver  shoulder 
shatter  the  gut  against  a  rock.  Why,  the  river  was  yes- 
terday in  spate,  and  she  is  fresh  run  from  the  sea.  All 
the  lesser  waterfalls  are  now  level  with  the  flood,  and  she 
meets  with  no  impediment  or  obstruction — the  course  is 
clear — no  tree-roots  here — no  floating  branches — for  during 
the  night  they  have  all  been  swept  down  to  the  salt  loch — 
in  medio  tutissirmis  ibis — ay,  now  you  feel  she  begins  to 
fail — the  butt  tells  now  every  time  you  deliver  your  right. 
What !  another  mad  leap  !  yet  another  sullen  plunge  !  She 
seems  absolutely  to  have  discovered,  or  rather  to  be  an 
impersonation  of,  the  perpetual  motion.  Stand  back  out 
of  the  way,  you  son  of  a  sea-cook — you  in  the  tattered 
blue  breeches,  with  the  tail  of  your  shirt  hanging  out. 
Who  the  devil  sent  you  ail  here,  ye  vagabonds? — Ha! 
Watty  Ritchie,  my  man,  is  that  you?  God  bless  your 
Iionest  laughing  phiz  !  What,  Watty,  would  you  think  of 
a  fish  like  that  about  Peebles?  Tarn  Grieve  never  gruppit 
sae  heavy  a  ane  since  first  he  belanged  to  the  council. 
Curse  that  coUey  !  Ay  !  well  done  Watty  !  Stone  him  to 
Stobbo.  Confound  these  stirks — if  that  white  one,  with 
caving  horns,  kicking  heels,  and  straight-up  tail,  come  bel- 
lowing by  between  me  and  the  river,  then,  "  Madam  !  all 
is  lost,  except  honour  !"  If  we  lose  this  fish  at  six  o'clock, 
then  suicide  at  seven.  Our  will  is  made — ten  thousand  to 
the  Foundling — ditto  to  the  Thames  Tunnel — ha — ha — 
my  beauty  !  Methinks  we  could  fain  and  fond  kiss  thy 
silver  side,  languidly  lying  afloat  on  the  foam,  as  if  all 


46  Wilson's  miscf.llaneous  writings. 

farther  resistance  now  were  vain,  and  gracefully  thou  wert 
surrendering  thyself  to  death!  No  faith  in  female — she 
Irusts  to  the  last  trial  of  her  tail — sweetly  workest  thou,  O 
Reel  of  Reels!  and  on  thy  smooth  axle  spinning  slcep'st, 
even,  as  Milton  describes  her,  like  our  own  worthy  planet. 
Scropc  —  Bainbridge  —  Maulo  —  princes  among  anglers — 
oh  !  that  you  were  hero  !  Where  the  devil  is  Sir  Hum- 
phrey ?  At  his  retort?  By  mysterious  sympathy — far  off 
at  his  own  Trows,  the  Kerss  feels  that  we  are  killing  the 
noblest  fish,  whose  back  ever  ripj)lcd  the  surface  of  deep 
or  shallow  in  the  Tweed.  Tom  Furdy  stands  like  a  seer, 
entranced  in  glorious  vision,  beside  turreted  Abbotsford. 
Shade  of  Sandy  Givan  !  Alas  !  alas  I  Poor  Sandy — why 
on  thy  pale  face  that  melancholy  smile! — Peter!  The 
gaff!  I'he  gaff!  Into  the  eddy  she  sails,  sick  and 
slow,  and  almost  with  a  swirl — whitening  as  she  nears  the 
sand — there  she  has  it — struck  right  into  the  shoulder, 
fairer  than  that  of  Juno,  Diana,  Minerva,  or  Venus — fair 
as  the  shoulder  of  our  own  beloved — and  lies  at  last  in  all 
her  glorious  length  and  breadth  of  beaming  beauty,  fit 
prey  for  giant  or  demigod  angling  before  the  flood  ! 

"  The  cliild  is  father  of  the  man, 
And  I  would  wish  my  days  to  be 
Bound  each  to  cacii  by  natural  piety !" 

So  much  for  the  angler.  The  shooter,  again,  he  begins 
Avith  his  pop  or  pipe-gun,  formed  of  the  last  year's  growth 
of  a  branch  of  the  plane-tree — the  beautiful  dark  green- 
leaved  and  fragrant-flowered  plane-tree,  that  stands  straight 
in  stem  and  round  in  head,  visible  and  audible  too  from 
afar  the  bee-resounding  umbrage,  alike  on  stormy  sea- 
coast  and  in  sheltered  inland  vale,  still  loving  the  roof  of 
the  fisherman's  or  peasant's  cottage. 

Then  comes,  perhaps,  the  city  pop-gun,  in  shape  like  a 
very  musket,  such  as  soldiers  bear — a  Christmas  present 
from  parent,  once  a  colonel  of  volunteers — nor  feeble  to 
discharge  the  pea-bullet  or  barley-shot,  formidable  to  face 
and  eyes;  nor  yet  unfelt,  at  six  paces,  by  hinder-end  of 
playmate,  scornfully  yet  fearfully  exposed.  But  the  shooter 
soon  tires  of  such  ineffectual  trigger — and  his  soul,  as  well 
as  his  hair,  is  set  on  fire  by  that  extraordinary  compound  — 


CHRISTOPHER  IN  HIS  STORTING  JACKET.  47 

gunpowder.  He  begins  with  burning  ofT  his  eyebrows  on 
the  king's  birthday — squibs  and  crackers  follow — and  all 
the  pleasures  of  the  plutf.  But  he  soon  longs  to  let  off  a 
gun — "and  follows  to  the  field  some  warlike  lord" — in 
hopes  of  being  allowed  to  discharge  one  of  the  double- 
barrels,  after  Ponto  has  made  his  last  point,  and  the  half- 
hidden  chimneys  of  home  are  again  seen  smoking  among 
the  trees.  This  is  his  first  practice  in  fire-arnis,  and  from 
that  hour  he  is — a  shooter. 

Then  there  is  in  most  rural  parishes — and  of  rural 
parishes  alone  do  we  condescend  to  speak — a  pistol,  a 
horse  one,  with  a  bit  of  silver  on  the  butt— perhaps  one 
that  originally  served  in  the  Scots  Grays.  It  is  bought,  or 
borrowed,  by  the  young  shooter,  who  begins  firing,  first  at 
barn-doors,  then  at  trees,  and  then  at  living  things — a 
strange  cur,  who,  from  his  lolling  tongue,  may  be  supposed 
to  have  the  hydrophobia — a  cat  that  has  purred  herself 
asleep  on  the  sunny  churchyard  wall,  or  is  watching  mice 
at  their  hole-mouths  among  the  graves — a  water-rat  in  the 
mill-lead — or  weasel  that,  running  to  his  retreat  in  the 
wall,  always  turns  round  to  look  at  you — a  goose  wandered 
from  his  common  in  disap|)ointed  love — or  brown  duck, 
easily  mistaken  by  the  unscrupulous  for  a  wild  one,  in 
pond  remote  from  human  dwelling,  or  on  meadow  by  the 
river  side,  away  from  the  clack  of  the  muter-mill.  The 
corby-crow,  too,  shouted  out  of  his  nest  on  some  tree  lower 
than  usual,  is  a  good  flying  mark  to  the  more  advanced 
class ;  or  morning  magpie,  a-chatter  at  skreigh  of  day 
close  to  the  cottage  door  among  the  chickens;  or  a  flock 
of  pigeons  wheeling  overhead  on  the  stubble-field,  or  sitting 
so  thick  together  that  every  stook  is  blue  with  templing 
plumage. 

But  the  pistol  is  discharged  for  a  fowling-piece — brown 
and  rusty,  with  a  slight  crack  probably  in  the  muzzle, 
and  a  lock  out  of  all  proportion  to  the  barrel.  Then 
the  young  shooter  aspires  at  halfpennies  thrown  up  into 
the  air — and  generally  hit,  for  there  is  never  wanting  an 
apparent  dent  in  copper  metal ;  and  thence  he  mounts  to 
the  glancing  and  skimming  swallow,  a  household  bird, 
and  therefore  to  be  held  sacred,  but  shot  at  on  the  excuse 
of  its   being   next   to   impossible   to   hit   him,  an  opinion 


48  Wilson's  jiiscellaneous  writings. 

strengthened  into  belief  by  several  summers'  practice. 
But  the  small  brown  and  white  marten  wheeling  through 
below  the  bridge,  or  along  the  many-holed  red-sand  bank, 
is  admitted  by  all  boys  to  be  fair  game — and  slill  more, 
the  long-winged  legless  black  devilet,  that,  if  it  falls  to  the 
ground,  cannot  rise  again,  and  therefore  screams  wheeling 
round  the  corners  and  battlements  of  towers  and  castles, 
or  far  out  even  of  cannon-shot,  gambols  in  companies  of 
hundreds,  and  regiments  of  a  thousand,  aloft  in  the  even- 
ing ether,  within  the  orbit  of  the  eagle's  flight.  It  seems 
to  boyish  eyes,  that  the  creatures  near  the  earth,  when 
but  little  blue  sky  is  seen  between  the  specks  and  the 
wallflowers  growinfj  on  the  coisrn  of  vantase — the  signal 
is  given  to  fire,  but  the  devilcts  are  too  high  in  heaven  to 
smell  the  sulphur.  The  starling  whips  with  a  shrill  cry 
into  his  nest,  and  nothing  falls  to  the  ground  but  a  tiny 
bit  of  mossy  mortar,  inhabited  by  a  spider! 

But  the  day  of  days  arrives  at  last,  when  the  school- 
boy— or  rather  the  coUcge-bo)'  returning  to  his  rural  vaca- 
tion— for  in  Scotland  college  winters  tread  close — too  close 
— on  the  heels  of  academies — has  a  gun — a  gun  in  a 
case — a  double-barrel  too — of  his  own — and  is  provided 
with  a  license — probably  without  any  other  qualification 
than  that  of  hit  or  miss.  On  some  portentous  morning 
he  effulges  with  the  sun  in  velveteen  jacket  and  breeches 
of  the  same — many -buttoned  gaiters,  and  an  unkerchiefed 
throat.  'Tis  the  fourteenth  of  September,  and  lo!  a  pointer 
at  his  heels — Ponto  of  course — a  game-bag  like  a  beggar's 
wallet  by  his  side — destined  to  be  at  eve  as  full  of  charity 
— and  all  the  paraphernalia  of  an  accomplished  sportsman. 
Proud,  were  she  to  see  the  sight,  would  be  the  "  mother 
that  bore  him;"  the  heart  of  that  old  sportsman,  his  daddy, 
would  sing  for  joy  !  The  chained  mastitT  in  the  yard 
yowls  his  admiration  ;  the  servant-lassies  uplift  the  pane 
of  their  garret,  and,  with  suddenly  withdrawn  blushes, 
titter  their  delight  in  their  rich  paper  curls  and  pure 
night-clothes.  Rab  Roger,  who  has  been  cleaning  out 
the  barn,  comes  forth  to  partake  of  the  caulker;  and 
away  go  the  footsteps  of  the  old  poacher  and  his  pupil 
through  the  autumnal  rime,  off  to  the  uplands — where, 
for  it  is  one  of  the  earliest  of  harvests — there  is  scarcely 


CHRISTOPHER  IN  HIS  SPORTING  JACKET.  49 

a  single  acre  of  standing  corn.  The  turnip-fields  are 
bright-green  with  hope  and  expectation — and  coveys  are 
couching  on  lazy  beds  beneath  the  potato-shaw.  Every 
high  hedge,  ditch-guarded  on  either  side,  shelters  its  own 
brood — imagination  hears  the  whirr  shaking  the  dewdrops 
from  the  broom  on  the  brae — and  first  one  bird  and  then 
another,  and  then  the  remaining  number,  in  itself  no  con- 
temptible covey,  seems  to  fancy's  ear  to  spring  single,  or 
in  clouds,  from  the  coppice-brushwood,  with  here  and 
there  an  intercepting  standard  tree. 

Poor  Ponto  is  much  to  be  pitied.  Either  having  a  cold 
in  his  nose,  or  having  ante-breakfasted  by  stealth  on  a 
red-herring,  he  can  scent  nothing  short  of  a  badger,  and, 
every  other  field,  he  starts  in  horror,  shame,  and  amaze- 
ment, to  hear  himself,  without  having  attended  to  his 
points,  inclosed  in  a  whirring  covey.  He  is  still  duly 
taken  between  those  inexorable  knees;  out  comes  the 
speck-and-span  new  dog-whip  heavy  enough  for  a  horse; 
and  the  yowl  of  the  patient  is  heard  over  the  whole  parish. 
Mothers  press  their  yet  unchastised  infants  to  their  breasts; 
and  the  schoolmaster,  fastening  a  knowing  eye  on  dunce 
and  ne'erdoweel,  holds  up,  in  silent  warning,  the  terror  of 
the  tawse.  Frequent  flogging  will  cow  the  spirit  of  the 
best  man  and  dog  in  Britain.  Ponto  travels  now  in  fear 
and  trembling,  but  a  Cew  yards  from  his  tyrant's  feet,  till, 
rousing  himself  to  the  sudden  scent  of  something  smelling 
strongly,  he  draws  slowly  and  beautifully,  and 

"  There  fix'd,  a  perfect  semicircle  stands." 

Up  runs  the  tyro  ready-cocked,  and,  in  his  eagerness, 
stumbling  among  the  stubble,  when  mark  and  lo !  the 
gabble  of  gray  goslings,  and  the  bill-protruded  hiss  of 
goose  and  gander !  Bang  goes  the  right-hand  barrel  at 
Ponto,  who  now  thinks  it  high  time  to  be  off  to  the  tune  of 


"  Ovvcr  the  liills  and  far 


away, 


while  the  young  gentleman,  half-ashamed  and  half-in- 
censed, half-glad  and  half-sorry,  discharges  the  left-hand 
barrel,  with  a  highly  improper  curse,  at  the  father  of  the 
feathered  family  before  him,  who  receives  the  shot  like  a 
ball  in  his  breast,  throws  a  somerset  quite  surprising  for  a 

VOL.  I.  5 


50  Wilson's  miscellajskous  writings. 

bird  of  his  usual  liabits,  anJ,  after  biting  the  dust  with  his 
bill,  and  thumping  it  with  his  bottom,  breathes  an  eternal 
farewell  to  this  sublunary  scene — and  leaves  himself  to 
be  paid  for  at  the  rate  of  eight-pence  a  pound  to  his  justly- 
irritated  owner,  on  whose  farm  he  had  led  a  long,  and  not 
only  harmless,  but  honourable  and  useful  life. 

It  is  nearly  as  impossible  a  thing  as  we  know,  to  borrow 
a  dog  about  the  time  the  sun  has  reached  his  meridian,  on 
the  first  day  of  the  partridges.  Ponto  by  this  time  has 
sneaked,  unseen  by  human  eye,  into  his  kennel,  and  coiled 
himself  up  into  the  arms  of  tired  nature's  sweet  restorer, 
balmy  sleep.  A  farmer  makes  offer  of  a  col  ley,  who, 
from  numbering  among  his  paternal  ancestors  a  Spanish 
pointer,  is  quite  a  Don  in  his  way  among  the  cheepers, 
and  has  been  known  in  a  turnip-field  to  stand  in  an  atti- 
tude very  similar  to  that  of  setting.  Luath  has  no  objec- 
tion to  a  frolic  over  the  fields,  and  plays  the  part  of  Ponto 
to  perfection.  At  last  ho  catches  sight  of  a  covey  bask- 
ing, and,  leaping  in  upon  them  open-mouthed,  dispatches 
them  right  and  left,  even  like  the  famous  dog  Billy  killing 
rats  in  the  pit  at  Westminster.  The  birds  are  bagged, 
with  a  gentle  remonstrance,  and  Luath's  exploit  rewarded 
with  a  whang  of  cheese.  Elated  by  the  pressure  on  his 
shoulder,  the  young  gentleman  laughs  at  the  idea  of  point- 
ing; and  fires  away,  like  winking,  at  every  uprise  of  birds, 
near  or  remote ;  works  a  miracle  by  bringing  down  three 
at  a  time,  that  chanced,  unknown  to  him,  to  be  crossing; 
and  wearied  with  such  slaughter,  lends  his  gun  to  the 
attendant  farmer,  who  can  mark  down  to  an  inch,  and 
walks  up  to  the  dropped  pout,  as  if  he  could  kick  her  up 
with  his  foot;  and  thus  the  bag  in  a  few  hours  is  half  full 
of  feathers  ;  while  to  close  with  eclat  the  sport  of  the  day, 
the  cunning  elder  takes  him  to  a  bramble  bush,  in  a  wall- 
nook,  at  the  edge  of  a  wood,  and  returning  the  gun  into 
his  hands,  shows  him  poor  pussie  sitting  with  open  eyes 
fast  asleep!  The  pellets  are  in  her  brain,  and  turning 
herself  over,  she  crunkles  out  to  her  full  length,  like  a 
piece  of  untwisting  Indian-rubber,  and  is  dead.  The  pos- 
terior pouch  of  the  jacket,  yet  unstained  by  blood,  yawns 
to  receive  her — and  in  she  goes  plump ;  paws,  ears,  body, 
feet,  fud  and  all — while  Luath,  all  the  way  home  to  the 


CHRISTOPHER  IN  HIS  SPORTING  JACKET.  51 

Mains,  keeps  snoking  at  the  red  drops  oozing  through — 
for  well  he  knows  in  summer's  heat  and  winter's  cold,  the 
smell  of  pussie,  whether  sitting  beneath  a  tuft  of  withered 
grass  on  the  brae,  or  burrowed  beneath  a  snow-wreath. 
A  hare,  we  certainly  must  say,  in  spite  of  haughtier 
sportsman's  scorn,  is,  when  sitting,  a  most  satisfactory 
shot. 

But  let  us  trace  no  farther,  thus  step  by  step,  the 
Pilgrim's  Progress.  Look  at  him  now — a  finished  sports- 
man— on  the  moors — the  bright  black  boundless  Dalwhin- 
nie  Moors,  stretching  away,  by  long  Loch-Erricht-side, 
into  the  dim  and  distant  day  that  hangs,  with  all  its 
clouds,  over  the  bosom  of  far  Loch-Rannoch.  Is  that  the 
plufier  at  partridge  pouts  wlio  had  nearly  been  the  death 
of  poor  Ponto  ?  Lord  Kennedy  himself  might  take  a 
lesson  now  from  the  straight  and  steady  style  in  which, 
on  the  mountain-brow,  and  up  to  the  middle  in  heather, 
he  brings  his  Manton  to  the  deadly  level !  More  unerring 
eye  never  glanced  along  brown  barrel !  Finer  fore-finger 
never  touched  a  trigger !  Follow  him  a  whole  day,  and 
not  one  wounded  bird.  AH  most  beautifully  arrested  on 
their  flight  by  instantaneous  death  !  Down  dropped  right 
and  left,  like  lead  on  the  heather — old  cock  and  hen  sin- 
gled out  among  the  orphan'd  brood,  as  calmly  as  a  cook 
would  do  it  in  the  larder — from  among  a  pile  of  plumage. 
No  random  shot  within — no  needless  shot  out  of  distance 
— covered  every  feather  before  stir  of  finger — and  body, 
back,  and  brain,  pierced,  broken,  scattered  I  And  what 
perfect  pointers!  There  they  stand  still  as  death — yet  in- 
stinct with  life — the  whole  half-dozen — Mungo,  the  black- 
tanned — Don,  the  red-spotted — Clara,  the  snow-white — 
Primrose,  the  pale  yellow — Basto,  the  bright  brown,  and 
Nimrod,  in  his  coat  of  many  colours,  often  seen  afar 
through  the  mists  like  a  meteor. 

So  much  for  the  angler's  and  the  shooter's  progress — 
now  briefly  for  the  hunter's.  Hunting,  in  this  country, 
unquestionably  commences  with  cats.  Few  cottages  with- 
out a  cat.  If  you  do  not  find  her  on  the  mouse-watch  at 
the  gable-end  of  the  house,  just  at  the  corner — take  a  solar 
observation,  and  by  it  look  for  her  on  bank  or  brae — 
somewhere  about  the  premises — if  unsuccessful,  peep  into 


52  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

the  byre,  and  up  through  a  hole  among  the  dusty  divots 
of  the  roof,  and  chance  is  you  see  her  eyes  glittering  far- 
ben  in  the  gloom  ;  but  if  she  be  not  there  either,  into  the 
barn  and  up  on  the  mow — and  surely  she  is  on  the  straw 
or  on  the  baulks  below  the  kipples.  No.  Well,  then,  let 
your  eye  travel  along  the  edge  of  that  little  wood  behind 
the  cottage — ay,  yonder  she  is — but  she  sees  both  you 
and  your  two  terriers — one  rough  and  the  other  smooth — 
and,  slinking  away  through  a  gap  in  the  old  hawthorn 
hedge  in  among  the  hazels,  she  either  lies  j)erdue,  or  is  up 
a  fir-tree  almost  as  high  as  the  magpie's  or  corby's  nest. 

Now — observe — shooting  cats  is  one  thing — and  hunt- 
ing them  is  another — and  shooting  and  hunting,  though 
they  may  be  united,  are  here  treated  separately ;  so,  in 
the  present  case,  the  cat  makes  her  escape.  But  get  her 
watching  birds — young  larks,  perhaps,  walking  on  the  lea 
— or  young  linnets  hanging  on  the  broom — down  by  yon- 
der in  the  holm  lands,  where  there  are  no  trees,  except 
indeed  that  one  glorious  single  tree,  the  golden  oak,  and 
he  is  guarded  by  Glowerer,  and  then  what  a  most  capital 
chase  !  Stretching  herself  up  with  a  crooked  back,  as  if 
taking  a  yawn — off  she  jumps,  with  tremendous  spangs, 
and  tail,  thickened  with  fear  and  anger,  perpendicular. 
Youf — youf — youf — go  the  terriers — head  over  heels  per- 
haps in  their  fury — and  not  long  in  turning  her — and 
bringing  her  to  bay  at  the  hedge-root,  all  a-blaze  and 
a-bristle.  A  she-devil  incarnate! — Hark — all  at  once 
now  strikes  up  a  trio — Catalani  caterwauling  the  treble — 
Glowerer  taking  the  bass — and  Tearer  the  tenor — a. cruel 
concert  cut  short  by  a  squalling  throttler.  Away — away 
along  the  holm — and  over  the  knowe — and  into  the  wood — 
for  lo !  the  gudewifo,  brandishing  a  besom,  comes  flying 
demented  without  her  mutch,  down  to  the  murder  of  her 
tabby, — her  son,  a  stout  stripling,  is  seen  skirting  the  po- 
tato-field to  intercept  our  flight, — and,  most  formidable  of 
all  foes,  the  man  of  the  house  himself,  in  his  shirt-sleeves  and 
flail  in  his  hand,  bolts  from  the  barn,  down  the  croft,  across 
the  burn,  and  up  the  brae,  to  cut  us  ofl'  from  the  manse. 
The  hunt's  up.,  and  'tis  a  capital  steeple-chase.  Disperse — 
disperse  !  Down  the  hill.  Jack — u[)  the  hill.  Gill — dive  the 
dell.  Kit — thread  the  wood,  Pat — a  hundred  yards  start  is 


CHRISTOPHER  IN  HIS  SPORTING  JACKET.  53 

a  great  matter — a  stern  chase  is  always  a  long  chase — 
schoolboys  are  generally  in  prime  wind — the  old  man  be- 
gins to  puff,  and  blow,  and  snort,  and  put  his  paws  to  his 
paunch — the  son  is  thrown  out  by  a  double  of  dainty 
Davy's — and  the  "  sair  begrutten  mither"  is  gathering  up 
the  torn  and  tattered  remains  of  Tortoise-shell  Tabby,  and 
invoking  the  vengeance  of  heaven  and  earth  on  her  pitiless 
murderers.  Some  slight  relief  to  her  bursting  and  break- 
ing heart,  to  vow  that  she  will  make  the  minister  hear  of 
it  on  the  deafest  side  of  his  head, — ay,  even  if  she  have  to 
break  in  upon  him  sitting  on  Saturday  night,  getting  aff  by 
rote  his  fushionless  sermon,  in  his  ain  study. 

Now,  gentle  reader,  again  observe,  that  though  we  have 
now  described,  con  amove,  a  most  cruel  case  of  cat-killing, 
in  which  we  certainly  did  play  a  most  aggravated  part, 
some  sixty  years  since,  far  indeed  are  we  from  recom- 
mending such  wanton  barbarity  to  the  rising  generation. 
We  are  not  inditing  a  homily  on  humanity  to  animals,  nor 
have  we  been  appointed  to  succeed  the  Rev.  Dr.  Somer- 
ville  of  Currie,  the  great  patentee  of  the  safety  double 
bloody  barrel,  to  preach  the  annual  Gibsonian  sermon  on 
that  subject — we  are  simply  stating  certain  matters  of  fact, 
illustrative  of  the  rise  and  progress  of  the  love  of  pastime 
in  the  soul,  and  leave  our  subscribers  to  draw  the  moral. 
But  may  we  be  permitted  to  say,  that  the  naughtiest  school- 
boys ot'ten  make  the  most  pious  men  ;  that  it  does  not  fol- 
low, according  to  the  wise  saws  and  modern  instances  of 
prophetic  old  women  of  both  sexes,  that  he  who  in  boy- 
hood has  worried  a  cat  with  terriers,  will,  in  manhood, 
commit  murder  on  one  of  his  own  species ;  or  that  pecca- 
dilloes are  the  progenitors  of  capital  crimes.  Nature 
allows  to  growing  lads  a  certain  range  of  wickedness,  sans 
peur  et  sans  reproche.  She  seems,  indeed,  to  whistle  into 
their  ear,  to  mock  ancient  females — to  laugh  at  Quakers — 
to  make  mouths  at  a  decent  man  and  his  wife  riding  double 
to  church — the  matron's  thick  legs  ludicrously  bobbing 
from  the  pillion  kept  firm  on  Dobbin's  rump  by  her  bot- 
tom, '■'■  ponderihus  librata  stiis," — to  tip  the  wink  to  young 
women  during  sermon  on  Sunday — and  on  Saturday,  most 
impertinently  to  kiss  them,  whether  they  will  or  no,  on 

.5* 


54  wiLso:v's  miscellaneous  aveitikgs. 

high-road  or  by-path — and  to  perpetrate  many  other  httle 
nameless  etiorniities. 

No  doubt,  at  the  time,  such  things  will  wear  rather  a 
suspicious  character ;  and  the  boy  who  is  detected  in  the 
fact,  must  be  punished  by  palmy,  or  privation,  or  impri- 
sonment from  play.  But  when  punished,  he  is  of  course 
left  free  to  resume  his  atrocious  career;  nor  is  it  found  that 
he  sleeps  a  whit  the  less  soundly,  or  shrieks  for  Heaven's 
mercy  in  his  dreams.  Conscience  is  not  a  craven. 
Groans  belong  to  guilt.  But  fun  and  frolic,  even  when 
trespasses,  are  not  guilt ;  and  though  a  cat  have  nine  lives, 
she  has  but  one  ghost — and  that  will  haunt  no  house 
where  there  are  terriers.  What !  surely  if  you  have  the 
happiness  of  being  a  parent,  you  would  not  wish  your  only 
boy — your  son  and  heir — the  blended  image  of  his  mother's 
loveliness  and  his  father's  manly  beauty — to  be  a  smug, 
smooth,  prim,  and  proper  prig,  with  his  hair  always 
combed  down  on  his  forehead,  hands  always  unglauered, 
and  without  spot  or  blemish  on  his  white-thread  stockings? 
You  would  not  wish  him,  surely,  to  be  always  moping  and 
musing  in  a  corner  with  a  good  book  held  close  to  his 
nose — botanizing  with  his  maiden  aunts — -doing  the  pretty 
at  tea-tables  with  tabbies,  in  handing  round  the  short- 
bread, taking  cups,  and  attending  to  the  kettle — telling 
tales  on  all  naughty  boys  and  girls — laying  up  his  penny 
a-week  pocket-money  in  a  penny-pig — keeping  all  his 
clothes  neatly  folded  up  in  an  untumbled  drawer — having 
his  own  peg  for  his  uncrushed  hat — saying  his  prayers 
precisely  as  the  clock  strikes  nine,  while  his  companions 
are  yet  at  blind  man's  buff — and  puffed  up  every  Sabbath 
eve  by  the  parson's  praises  of  his  uncommon  memory  for 
a  sermon — while  all  the  other  boys  are  scolded  for  having 
fallen  asleep  before  tcnthly  ?  You  would  not  wish  him, 
surely,  to  write  sermons  himself  at  his  tender  years,  nay — 
even  to  be  able  to  give  you  chapter  and  verse  for  every 
quotation  from  the  Bible  ?  No.  Better  far  that  he  should 
begin  early  to  break  your  heart,  by  taking  no  care  even  of 
his  Sunday's  clothes — blotting  his  copy — impiously  pin- 
ning pieces  of  paper  to  the  dominie's  tail,  who  to  him  was 
a  second  father — going  to  the  fishing  not  only  without 


CHRISTOPHER  IN  HIS  SPORTING  JACKET.  50 

leave  but  against  orders — bathing  in  the  forbidden  pool, 
where  the  tailor  was  drowned — drying  powder  before  the 
school-room  fire,  and  blowing  himself  and  two  crack- 
skulled  cronies  to  the  ceiling — tying  kettles  to  the  tails  of 
dogs — shooting  an  old  woman's  laying  hen — galloping 
bare-backed  shelties  down  stony  steeps — climbing  trees  to 
the  slenderest  twig  on  which  bird  could  build,  and  up  the 
toolh-of-time-indented  sides  of  old  castles  after  wall-flowers 
and  starlings — being  run  away  with  in  carts  by  colts 
against  turnpike  gales — buying  bad  ballads  from  young 
gipsy-girls,  who,  on  receiving  a  sixpence,  give  ever  so 
many  kisses  in  return,  saying,  "  Take  your  change  out  ol' 
that" — on  a  borrowed  brokcn-knee'd  pony,  with  a  switch 
tail — a  devil  for  galloping — not  only  attending  country- 
races  for  a  saddle  and  collar,  but  entering  for  and  winning 
the  prize — dancing  like  a  devil  in  barns  at  kirnis — seeing 
his  blooming  partner  home  over  the  blooming  heather, 
most  perilous  adventure  of  all  in  which  virgin-puberty  can 
be  involved — fighting  with  a  rival  in  corduroy  breeches, 
and  poll  shorn  beneath  a  cawp,  till  his  eyes  just  twinkle 
through  the  swollen  blue — and,  to  conclude  "  this  strange 
eventful  history,"  once  brought  home  at  one  o'clock  in  the 
morning,  God  knows  whence  or  by  whom,  and  found  by 
the  shrieking  servant,  sent  out  to  listen  for  him  in  the 
moonlight,  dead-drunk  on  the  gravel  at  the  gate  ! 

Nay,  start  not,  parental  reader — nor,  in  the  terror  of 
anticipation,  send,  without  loss  of  a  single  day,  for  your 
son  at  a  distant  academy,  mayhap  pursuing  even  such 
another  career.  Trust  thou  to  the  genial,  gracious,  and 
benign  vis  medicatrix  7iaturce.  What  though  a  few  clouds 
bedim  and  deform  "  the  innocent  brightness  of  the  new- 
born day  ?"  Lo!  how  splendid  the  meridian  ether  !  What 
though  the  frost  seem  to  blight  the  beauty  of  the  budding 
and  blowing  rose !  Look  how  she  revives  beneath  dew, 
rain,  and  sunshine,  till  your  eyes  can  even  scarce  endure 
the  lustre !  What  though  the  waters  of  the  sullen  fen 
seem  to  pollute  the  snow  of  the  swan  ?  They  fall  ofi'  from 
her  expanded  wings,  and,  pure  as  a  spirit,  she  soars  away, 
and  descends  into  her  own  silver  lake,  stainless  as  the 
water-lilies  floating  round  her  breast.  And  shall  the  im- 
mortal soul  suflcr  lastinir  contamination  from  the  transient 


56  Wilson's  miscellankous  writings. 

chances  of  its  nascent  state — in  this,  less  favoured  than 
material  and  immaterial  things  that  perish?  No — it  is 
undergoing  endless  transmigrations, — every  hour  a  being 
didercnt,  yet  the  same — dark  stains  blotted  out — rueful 
inscriptions  cflaccd — many  an  erasure  of  impressions  once 
thought  permanent,  but  soon  altogether  forgotten — and 
vindicating,  in  the  midst  of  the  earthly  corruption  in  which 
it  is  immersed,  its  own  celestial  origin,  character,  and  end, 
often  flickering,  or  seemingly  blown  out  like  a  taper  in  the 
wind,  but  all  at  once  self-reillumined,  and  shining  in  inex- 
tinguishable and  self-fed  radiance — like  a  star  in  heaven. 
Therefore,  bad  as  boys  too  often  are — and  a  disgrace  to 
the  mother  who  bore  them — the  cradle  in  which  they  were 
rocked — the  nurse  by  whom  they  were  suckled — the  school- 
master by  whom  they  were  flogged — and  the  hangman  by 
whom  it  was  prophesied  they  were  to  be  executed — wait 
patiently  for  a  few  years,  and  you  will  see  them  all  trans- 
figured— one  into  a  preacher  of  such  winning  eloquence, 
that  he  almost  persuades  all  men  to  be  Christians — another 
into  a  parliamentary  orator,  who  commands  the  applause 
of  listening  senates,  and 

"  Reads  liis  history  in  a  nation's  eyes," 

— one  into  a  painter,  before  whose  thunderous  heavens 
the  storms  of  Poussin  "  pale  their  ineffectual  fires" — another 
into  a  poet,  composing  and  playing,  side  by  side,  on  his 
own  peculiar  harp,  in  a  concert  of  vocal  and  instrumental 
music,  with  Byron,  Scott,  and  Wordsworth — one  into  a 
great  soldier,  who,  when  Wellington  is  no  more,  shall,  for 
the  freedom  of  the  world,  conquer  a  future  Waterloo — 
another  who,  hoisting  his  flag  on  the  "  mast  of  some  tall 
admiral,"  shall,  like  Eliab  Harvey  in  the  Temeraire,  lay 
two  three-deckers  on  board  at  once,  and  clothe  some  now 
nameless  peak  or  promontory  in  immortal  glory  like  that 
shining  on  Trafalgar. 

Well,  then,  after  cat-killing  comes  coursing.  Cats  have 
a  look  of  hares — kittens  of  leverets — and  they  are  all 
called  pussy.  The  terriers  are  useful  still,  preceding  the 
line  like  skirmishers,  and  with  finest  noses  startling  the 
mawkin  from  bracken-bush,  or  rush-bower,  her  sky-light 
garret  in  the  old  (juarry,  or  her  brown  study  in  the  brake. 


CHRISTOniER  IN  HIS  SPORTING  JACKET.  57 

Away  with  your  coursing  on  Marlborough  downs,  where 
huge  hares  are  seen  squatted  from  a  distance,  and  the 
sleek  dogs,  disrobed  of  their  gaudy  trappings,  are  let  slip 
by  a  tryer,  running  for  cups  and  collars  before  lords  and 
ladies,  and  squires  of  high  and  low  degree — a  pretty 
pastime  enough,  no  doubt,  in  its  way,  and  a  splendid  caval- 
cade. But  will  it  for  a  moment  compare  with  the  sudden 
and  all-unlooked-for  start  of  the  "  auld  witch"  from  the 
bunweed-covered  lea,  when  the  throat  of  every  pedestrian 
is  privileged  to  cry  halloo — halloo — halloo — and  whip- 
cord-tailed grayhound  and  hairy  lurcher,  without  any  invi- 
dious distinction  of  birth  or  bearing,  lay  their  deep  breasts 
to  the  sward  at  the  same  moment  to  the  same  instinct,  and 
brattle  over  the  brae  after  the  disappearing  ears,  laid  flat  at 
the  first  sight  of  her  pursuers,  as  with  retroverted  eyes  she 
turns  her  face  to  the  mountain,  and  seeks  the  cairn  only  a 
little  lower  than  the  falcon's  nest? 

What  signifies  any  sport  in  the  open  air,  except  in  con- 
genial scenery  of  earth  and  heaven  ?  Go,  thou  gentle 
cockney  !  and  angle  in  the  New  River; — but,  bold  English- 
man, come  with  us  and  try  a  salmon-cast  in  the  old  Tay. 
Go,  thou  gentle  cockney  !  and  course  a  suburban  hare  in 
the  purlieus  of  Blackheath  ;— but,  bold  Englishman,  come 
with  us  and  course  an  animal  that  never  heard  a  city-bell, 
by  day  a  hare,  by  night  an  old  woman,  that  loves  the  dogs 
she  dreads,  and,  hunt  her  as  you  will  with  a  leash  and  a 
hhlf  of  lightfoots,  still  returns  at  dark  to  the  same  form  in 
the  turf-dike  of  the  garden  of  the  mountain  cottage.  The 
children  who  love  her  as  their  own  eyes — for  she  has  been 
as  a  pet  about  the  family,  summer  and  winter,  since  that 
chubby-cheeked  urchin,  of  some  five  years  old,  first  began 
to  swing  in  his  self-rocking  cradle — will  scarcely  care  to 
see  her  started — nay,  one  or  two  of  the  wickedest  among 
them  will  join  in  the  halloo — for  often,  ere  this,  "  has  she 
cheated  the  very  jowlcrs,  and  lauched  ower  her  shouther 
at  the  lang  dowgs  walloping  ahint  her,  sair  forfaquhen  up 
the  benty  brae — and  it's  no  the  day  that  she's  gaun  to  be 
killed  by  rough  Robin,  or  smooth  Spring,  or  the  red  Bick, 
or  the  hairy  Lurcher — though  a'  fowr  be  let  lowse  on  her 
at  ance,  and  ye  surround  her  or  she  rise."  What  are  your 
great  big  fat  lazy  English  hares,  ten  or  twelve  pounds  and 


58  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

upwards,  wlio  have  the  food  brought  to  their  very  mouth 
in  preserves,  and  arc  out  of  breath  with  five  minutes 
scamper  among  themselves — to  the  middle-sized,  hard- 
hipped,  wiry-backed,  steel-legged,  long-winded  mawkins  of 
Scotland,  that  scorn  to  taste  a  leaf  of  a  single  cabbage  in 
the  wee  moorland  yardie  that  shelters  them,  but  prey  in 
distant  fields,  take  a  breathing  every  gloaming  along  the 
mountain-breast,  untired  as  young  eagles  ringing  the  sky 
for  pastime,  and  before  the  dogs  seem  not  so  much  scour- 
ing for  life  as  for  pleasure,  with  such  an  air  of  freedom, 
liberty,  and  independence,  do  they  fling  up  the  moss,  and 
cock  their  fuds  in  the  faces  of  their  pursuers.  Yet  stanch 
are  they  to  the  spine — strong  in  bone,  and  sound  in  bot- 
tom— see,  see  how  Tickler  clears  that  twenty-feet  moss- 
hag  at  a  single  spang  like  a  bird — tops  that  hedge  that 
would  turn  any  hunter  that  ever  stabled  in  Melton  Mow- 
bi'ay — and  then,  at  full  speed  northv/ard,  moves  as  upon  a 
pivot  within  his  own  length,  and  close  upon  his  haunches, 
without  losing  a  foot,  off  within  a  point  of  due  south.  A 
kennel !  He  never  was  and  never  will  be  in  a  kennel  all 
his  free  joyful  days.  He  has  walked — and  run — and 
leaped  and  swam  about — at  his  own  will — ever  since  he 
was  nine  days  old — and  he  would  have  done  so  sooner  had 
he  had  any  eyes.  None  of  your  stinking  cracklets  for 
him — he  takes  his  meals  with  the  family,  sitting  at  the 
right  hand  of  the  master's  eldest  son.  He  sleeps  in  any 
bed  of  the  house  he  chooses.  And  though  no  Methodist, 
he  goes  every  third  Sunday  to  church.  That  is  the  edu- 
cation of  a  Scottish  grayhound — and  the  consequence  is, 
that  you  may  pardonably  mistake  him  for  a  deer  dog  from 
Badenoch  or  Lochaber,  and  no  doubt  in  the  world  that  he 
would  rejoice  in  a  glimpse  of  the  antlers  on  the  weather 
gleam, 

"  Wlicrc  the  liunter  of  deer  and  tlic  warrior  trode 
To  his  hills  that  encircle  the  sea." 

This  may  be  called  roughing  it — slovenly — coarse — 
rude — artless — unscientific.  But  we  say  no — it  is  your 
only  coursing.  Gods!  with  what  a  bounding  bosom  the 
schoolboy  salutes  the  dawning  of  the  cool — clear — crisp, 
yes,  crisp  October  morn, — for  there  has  been  a  slight  frost, 


CHRISTOniER  IN  HIS  SPORTING  JACKET.  59 

and  the  almost  leafless  hedgerows  are  all  glittering  with 
rime, — and,  little  time  lost  at  dress  or  breakfast,  crams  the 
luncheon  into  his  pouch — and  away  to  the  Trysting-hill 
Farm- House,  which  he  fears  the  gamekee|)er  and  liis 
grows  will  have  left  ere  he  can  run  across  the  two  long 
Scotch  miles  of  moor  between  him  and  his  joy  !  With  step 
elastic,  he  feels  flying  along  the  sward  as  from  a  spring- 
board ;  like  a  roe,  he  clears  the  burns,  and  bursts  his  way 
through  the  brakes ;  panting  not  from  brcathlessness  but 
anxiety,  he  lightly  leaps  the  garden  fence  without  a  pole, 
and  lo  !  the  green  jacket  of  one  huntsman,  the  red  jacket  of 
another,  on  the  plat  before  the  door,  and  two  or  three  tall 
raw-boned  poachers — and  there  is  mirth  and  music,  fun 
and  frolic,  and  the  very  soul  of  enterprise,  adventure,  and 
desperation,  in  that  word — while  tall  and  graceful  stand 
the  black,  the  brindled,  and  the  yellow  breed,  with  keen 
yet  quiet  eyes,  prophetic  of  their  destined  prey,  and  though 
motionless  now  as  stone  statues  of  hounds  at  the  feet  of 
Meleager,  soon  to  launch  like  lightning  at  the  loved 
halloo ! 

Out  comes  the  gudewife  with  her  own  bottle  from  the 
press  in  the  spence,  with  as  big  a  belly  and  broad  a  bot- 
tom as  her  own,  and  they  are  no  trifle, — for  the  worthy 
woman  has  been  making  much  beef  for  many  years,  is, 
moreover,  in  the  family  way,  and  surely  this  time  there 
will  be  twins,  at  least — and  pours  out  a  canty  calker  for 
each  crowing  crony,  beginning  with  the  gentle,  and  end- 
ing with  the  semple,  that  is  our  and  herself;  and  better 
speerit  never  steamed  in  sma'-still.  She  oflers  another 
with  "  hinny,"  by  way  of  Athole  brose ;  but  it  is  put  off 
till  evening,  for  coursing  requires  a  clear  head,  and  the 
same  sobriety  then  adorned  our  youth,  that  now  dignifies 
our  old  age.  The  gudeman,  although  an  elder  of  the 
kirk,  and  with  as  grave  an  aspect  as  suits  that  solemn 
office,  needs  not  much  persuasion  to  let  the  flail  rest  ibr 
one  day,  anxious  though  he  be  to  show  the  first  aits  in 
the  market;  and  donning  his  broad  blue  bonnet,  and  the 
shortest-tailed  auld  coat  he  can  find,  and  taking  his  kent 
in  his  hand,  he  gruffly  gives  Wully  his  orders  for  a'  things 
about  the  place,  and  sets  out  with  the  younkers  for  a  holi- 
day. Not  a  man  on  earth  who  has  not  his  own  pastime, 
depend  on't,  austere  as  he  may  look  ;  and  'twould  be  well 


60  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

for  this  wicked  world  if  no  elder  in  it  had  a  "  sin  tliat 
maist  easily  beset  him,"  worse  than  what  Gibby  Watson's 
wife  used  to  call  his  "  awfu'  fondness  for  the  Grews !" 

And  who  that  loves  to  walk  or  wander  over  the  green 
earth,  except,  indeed,  it  merely  be  some  sonnetteer  or 
ballad-monger,  if  he  had  time  and  could  afford  it,  and 
lived  in  a  tolerable  open  country,  would  not  keep,  at  the 
very  least,  three  grayhounds  ?  No  better  eating  than  a 
hare,  though  old  blockhead  Burton — and  he  was  a  block- 
head, if  blockhead  ever  there  was  one  in  this  world — in 
his  Anatomy,  chooses  to  call  it  melancholy  meat.  Did 
he  ever,  by  way  of  giving  dinner  a  fair  commencement, 
swallow  a  tureen  of  hare-soup,  with  half-a-peck  of  mealy 
potatoes?  If  ever  he  did — and  notwithstanding  called  hare 
melancholy  meat,  there  can  be  no  occasion  whatever  for 
wishing  him  any  farther  punishment.  If  he  never  did — 
then  he  was  on  earth  the  most  unfortunate  of  men.  England 
— as  you  love  us  and  yourself — cultivate  hare-soup,  with- 
out for  a  moment  dreaming  of  giving  up  roasted  hare  well 
stuffed  with  stuffing,  jelly  sauce  being  handed  round  on  a 
large  trencher.  But  there  is  no  such  thing  as  melancholy 
meat — either  fish,  flesh,  or  fowl — provided  only  there  be 
enough  of  it.  Otherwise,  the  daintiest  dish  drives  you  to 
despair.  But  independently  of  spit,  pot,  and  pan,  what 
delight  in  even  daunering  about  the  home-farm  seeking 
for  a  hare !  It  is  quite  an  art  or  science.  You  must  con- 
sult not  only  the  wind  and  weather  of  to-day,  but  of  the 
night  before — and  of  every  day  and  night  back  to  last 
Sunday,  when  probably  you  were  prevented  by  the  rain 
from  going  to  church.  Then  hares  shift  the  sites  of  their 
country  seats  every  season.  This  month  they  love  the 
fallow-fieid, — that,  the  stubble — this,  you  will  see  them, 
almost  without  looking  for  them,  big  and  brown  on  the 
bare  stony  upland  lea — that,  you  must  have  a  hawk's  eye 
in  your  head  to  discern,  discover,  detect  them,  like  birds 
in  their  nests,  embowered  below  the  bunweed  or  the 
bracken — they  choose  to  spend  this  week  in  a  wood  im- 
pervious to  wet  or  wind — that,  in  a  marsh  too  plashy  for 
the  plover — now  you  may  depend  on  finding  madam  at 
home  in  the  sulks  within  the  very  heart  of  a  bramble-bush 
or  dwarf  black-thorn  thicket,  while  the  squire  cocks  his 


CHRISTOPHER  IN  HIS  SPORTING  JACKET.  61 

Aid  at  you  from  the  top  of  a  knowe  open  to  blasts  from 

all  the  airts in  short,  he  who  knows  at  all  times  where 

to  find  a  hare,  even  if  he  knew  not  one  single  thing  else 
but  the  way  to  his  mouth,  cannot  be  called  an  ignorant 
man — is  probably  a  better  informed  man  in  the  long  run 
than  the  friend  on  his  right,  discoursing  about  the  Turks, 
the  Greeks,  the  Portugals,  and  all  that  sort  of  thing, 
giving  himself  the  lie,  on  every  arrival  of  his  daily  paper. 
We  never  yet  knew  an  old  courser,  (him  of  the  Sporting 
Annals  included,)  who  was  not  a  man  both  of  abilities  and 
virtues.  But  where  were  we  ?  at  the  Trysting-hill  Farm- 
House,  jocularly  called,  Hunger-them-Out. 

Line  is  formed,  and  with  measured  steps  we  march 
towards  the  hills — for  we  ourselves  are  the  schoolboy, 
bold,  bright,  and  blooming  as  the  rose — fleet  of  foot 
almost  as  the  very  antelope — Oh  !  now,  alas  !  dim  and 
withered  as  a  stalk  from  which  winter  has  swept  all  the 
blossoms, — slow  as  the  sloth  along  the  ground — spindle- 
shanked  as  a  lean  and  slippered  pantaloon  ! 

"  O  heaven  I  that  from  our  bright  and  sliining'  years 
Age  would  but  take  the  things  youth  liccded  not !" 

An  old  shepherd  meets  us  on  the  long  sloping  rushy 
ascent  to  the  hills — and  putting  his  brown  withered  finger 
to  his  gnostic  nose,  intimates  that  she  is  in  her  old  form 
behind  the  dike — and  the  noble  dumb  animals,  with 
pricked-up  ears  and  brandished  tail,  are  aware  that  her 
hour  is  come.  Plash,  plash  through  the  marsh,  and  then 
on  the  dry  furze  beyond,  you  see  her  large  dark-brown 
eyes — Soho,  soho,  soho — Halloo,  halloo,  halloo — for  a 
moment  the  seemingly  horned  creature  appears  to  dally 
with  the  danger,  and  to  linger  ere  she  lays  her  lugs  on 
her  shoulder,  and  away,  like  thoughts  pursuing  thoughts 
— away  fly  hare  and  hounds  towards  the  mountain. 

Stand  all  still  for  a  minute — for  not  a  bush  the  height 
of  our  knee  to  break  our  view — and  is  not  that  brattling 
burst  up  the  brae  "  beautiful  exceedingly,"  and  sufficient 
to  chain  in  admiration  the  beatings  of  the  rudest  gazer's 
heart?  Yes;  of  all  beautiful  sights — none  more,  none  so 
much  so,  as  the  miraculous  motion  of  a  four-footed  wild 
animal,  changed   at   once   from   a  seeming  inert   sod   or 

VOL.  I.  6 


62  Wilson's  jiiscellaneous  avritings. 

stone,  into  flight  fleet  as  that  of  the  falcon's  wing!  Instinct 
against  instinct !  fear  and  ferocity  in  one  flight !  Pursuers 
and  pursued  hound  together,  in  every  turning  and  twisting 
of  their  career,  by  the  operation  of  two  headlong  passions! 
Now  they  are  all  three  upon  her — and  she  dies !  No ! 
glancing  aside,  like  a  bullet  from  a  wall,  she  bounds 
almost  at  a  right  angle  from  her  straight  course — and, 
for  a  moment,  seems  to  have  made  good  her  escape. 
Shooting  headlong  one  over  the  other,  all  three,  with 
erected  fails,  suddenly  bring  themselves  up — like  racing 
barks  when  down  goes  the  helm,  and  one  after  another, 
bowsprit  and  boom  almost  entangled,  rounds  the  buoy, 
and  again  bears  up  on  the  starboard  tack  upon  a  wind, — 
and  in  a  close  line — head  to  heel — so  that  you  might 
cover  them  all  with  a  sheet  in  slips  of  the  Magazine — 
again,  all  open-mouthed  on  her  haunches,  seem  to  drive, 
and  go  with  her  over  the  cliff. 

We  are  all  on  foot — and  pray  what  horse  could  gallop 
through  among  all  these  quagmires,  over  all  the  hags  in 
these  peat-mosses,  over  all  the  water-crcssy  and  puddocky 
ditches  sinking  soft  on  hither  and  thither  side,  even  to  the 
two-legged  leaper's  ankle  or  knee — up  that  hill  on  the 
perpendicular  strewn  with  flint-shivers — down  these  loose- 
hanging  clifTs — through  that  brake  of  old  stunted  birches 
with  stools  hard  as  iron — over  that  mile  of  quaking  muir 
where  the  plover  breeds — and  finally — up — up — up  to 
where  the  dwarfed  heather  dies  away  among  the  cinders, 
and  in  winter  you  might  mistake  a  flock  of  ptarmigan  for 
a  patch  of  snow? 

The  thing  is  impossible — so  we  are  all  on  foot — and  the 
fleetest  keeper  that  ever  flew  in  Scotland  shall  not  in  a  run 
of  three  miles  give  us  twenty  yards.  "  Ha  !  Peter,  the 
wild  boy,  how  are  you  off  for  wind?" — we  exultingly 
exclaim,  in  giving  Rod-jacket  the  go-by  on  the  bent.  But 
see — sec — ihey  are  bringing  her  back  again  down  the 
Red  Mount — glancing  aside,  she  throws  them  all  three 
out — yes,  all  threcj  and  few  enow  too,  though  fair  play 
be  a  jewel — and  ere  they  can  recover,  she  is  a-hcad  a 
hundred  yards  up  the  hill.  There  is  a  beautiful  trial  of 
bone  and  bottom !  Now  one,  and  then  another,  lakes 
almost  impercej)tibly  the  lead — but  she  steals  away  from 


CHRISTOPHER  IN  HIS  SPORTING  JACKET.  63 

them,  inch  by  inch — beating  them  all  blind — and,  sud- 
denly disappearing — Fleaven  knows  how — leaves  them  all 
in  the  lurch.  With  out-lolling  tongues,  hanging  heads, 
panting  sides,  and  drooping  tails,  they  come  one  by  one 
down  the  steep,  looking  somewhat  sheepish,  and  then  lie 
down  together  on  their  sides  as  if  indeed  about  to  die  in 
defeat.  She  carried  away  her  cocked  fud  unscathed  for 
ihe  third  time,  from  three  of  the  best  in  all  broad  Scotland 
— nor  can  there  any  longer  be  the  smallest  doubt  in  the 
world,  in  the  minds  of  the  most  sceptical,  that  she  is — 
what  all  the  country-side  have  long  known  her  to  be — 
a  witch. 

From  cat-killing  to  coursing,  we  have  seen  that  the 
transition  is  easy  in  the  order  of  nature — and  so  is  it  from 
coursing  to  fox-hunting — by  means,  however,  of  a  small 
intermediate  step — the  harriers.  Musical  is  a  pack  of 
harriers  as  a  peal  of  bells.  How  melodiously  they  ring 
the  changes  in  the  woods,  and  in  the  hollow  of  the  moun- 
tains !  A  level  country,  we  have  already  consigned  to 
merited  contempt  (though  there  is  no  rule  without  an 
exception;  and,  as  we  shall  see  by  and  by,  there  is  one 
too  here),  and  commend  us,  even  with  harriers,  to  the  ups 
and  downs  of  the  pastoral  or  sylvan  heights.  If  old  or 
indolent,  take  your  station  on  a  heaven-kissing  hill,  and 
hug  the  echoes  to  your  heart.  Or,  if  you  will  ride,  then 
let  it  be  on  a  nimble  galloway  of  some  fourteen  hands, 
that  can  gallop  a  good  pace  on  the  road,  and  keep  sure 
footing  on  bridle-paths,  or  upon  the  pathless  braes — and 
by  judicious  horsemanship,  you  may  meet  the  pack  at 
many  a  loud-mouthed  burst,  and  haply  be  not  far  out  at 
the  death.  But  the  schoolboy — and  the  shepherd — and 
the  whipper-in — as  each  hopes  for  favour  from  his  own 
Diana — let  them  all  be  on  foot — and  have  studied  the 
country  for  ever}''  imaginable  variety  that  can  occur  in 
the  winter's  campaign.  One  often  hears  of  a  cunning 
old  fox — but  the  cunningest  old  fox  is  a  simpleton  to  the 
most  guileless  young  hare.  What  deceit  in  every  double! 
What  calculation  in  every  squat !  Of  what  far  more 
complicated  than  Cretan  labyrinth  is  the  creature,  now 
hunted  for  the  first  time,  sitting  in  the  centre !  a-listening 
the  baffled  roar !     Now  into  the  pool  she  plunges  to  free 


64  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

herself  from  the  fatal  scent  that  lures  on  death.  Now 
down  the  torrent  course  she  runs  and  leaps,  to  cleanse  it 
from  her  poor  paws,  fur-protected  from  the  sharp  flints 
that  lame  the  hends  that  so  sorely  beset  her,  till  many 
limp  along  in  their  own  blood.  Now  along  the  coping  of 
stone  walls  she  crawls  and  scrambles — and  now  ventures 
from  the  wood  along  the  frequented  highroad,  heedless  of 
danger  from  the  front,  so  that  she  may  escape  the  horrid 
growling  in  the  rear.  Now  into  the  pretty  little  garden 
of  the  wayside,  or  even  the  village  cot,  she  creeps,  as  if 
to  implore  protection  from  the  innocent  children,  or  the 
nursing  mother.  Yes,  she  will  even  seek  refuge  in  the 
sanctuary  of  the  cradle.  The  terrier  drags  her  out  from 
below  a  tombstone,  and  she  dies  in  the  churchyard.  The 
hunters  come  reeking  and  reeling  on,  we  ourselves  among 
the  number — and  to  the  winding  horn  the  echoes  reply 
from  the  walls  of  the  house  of  worship — and  now,  in 
momentary  contrition, 

"  Drojjs  a  sad,  serious  tear  upon  our  playful  pen !" 
and  we  bethink  ourselves — alas,  all  in  vain — for 

'•'■  Naturam  expellas  furca,  lamen  usque  recurrcC — 
of  these  solemn  lines  of  the  poet  of  peace  and  humanity  : — 

"  One  lesson,  reader,  let  us  two  divide, 
Taught  by  what  nature  shows  and  wliat  conceals, 
Never  to  blend  our  pleasure  and  our  pride 
With  sorrow  of  the  meanest  thing  that  feels." 

It  is  next  to  impossible  to  reduce  fine  poetry  to  practice 
— so  let  us  conclude  with  a  panegyric  on  fox-hunting. 
The  passion  for  this  pastime  is  the  very  strongest  that 
can  possess  the  heart — nor,  of  all  the  heroes  of  antiquity, 
is  there  one  to  our  imagination  more  poetical  than  Nim- 
rod.  His  whole  character  is  given,  and  his  whole  his- 
tory in  two  words — Mighty  Hunter.  That  he  hunted  the 
fox  is  not  probable — for  the  sole  aim  and  end  of  his 
existence  was — not  to  exterminate — that  would  have  been 
cutting  his  own  throat — but  to  thin  man-devouring  wild 
beasts — the  pards — with  Leo  at  their  head.  But  in 
a  land  like  this,  where  not  even  a  wolf  has  existed  for 


CHRISTOPHER    IN    HIS    SPORTING    JACKET.  65 

centuries — nor  a  wild  boar — the  same  spirit,  that  would 
have  driven  the  British  youth  on  the  tusk  and  paw  of  the 
lion  and  the  tiger,  mounts  them  in  scarlet  on  such  steeds 
as  never  neighed  before  the  flood,  nor  "  summered  high 
in  bliss"  on  the  sloping  pastures  of  undeluged  Ararat— 
and  gathers  them  together  in  gallant  array  on  the  edge 
of  the  cover, 

"  When  first  tlic  hunter's  starflina;-  horn  is  lieard 
Upon  the  golden  hills." 

What  a  squadron  of  cavalry  !  Wliat  fiery  eyes  and 
flaming  nostrils — betokening  with  what  ardent  passion 
the  noble  animals  will  revel  in  the  chase !  Bay,  brown, 
black,  dun,  chestnut,  sorrel,  gray, — of  all  shades  and  hues 
— and  every  courser  distinguished  by  his  own  peculiar 
character  of  shape  and  form, — yet  all  blending  harmo- 
niously as  they  crown  the  mount;  so  that  a  painter  would 
only  have  to  group  and  colour  them  as  they  stand,  nor 
lose,  if  able  to  catch  them,  one  of  the  dazzling  lights  or 
deepening  shadows  streamed  on  them  from  that  sunny, 
yet  not  unstormy  sky. 

You  read  in  books  of  travels  and  romances,  of  Barbs  and 
Arabs  galloping  in  the  desert — and  well  doth  Sir  Walter 
speak  of  Saladin  at  the  head  of  his  Saracenic  chivalry  ; 
but  take  our  word  for  it,  great  part  of  all  such  descrip- 
tions are  mere  falsehood  or  fudge.  Why  in  the  devil's 
name  should  dwellers  in  the  desert  always  be  going  at 
full  speed  ?  And  how  can  that  full  speed  be  any  thing 
more  than  a  slow  heavy  hand-gallop  at  the  best,  the  barbs 
being  up  to  the  belly  at  every  stroke?  They  are  always, 
it  is  said,  in  high  condition — but  we,  who  know  something 
about  horse-flesh,  give  that  assertion  the  lie.  They  have 
seldom  any  thing  either  to  eat  or  drink  ;  are  lean  as  church- 
mice  ;  and  covered  with  clammy  sweat  before  they  have 
trotted  a  league  from  the  tent.  And  then  such  a  set  of 
absurd  riders,  with  knees  up  to  their  noses,  like  so  many 
tailors  riding  to  Brentford,  via  the  deserts  of  Arabia! 
Such  bits,  such  bridles,  and  such  saddles  !  But  the  whole 
set-out,  rider  and  ridden,  accoutrements  and  all,  is  too 
much  for   one's    gravity,  and  must    occasion  a  frequent 

6* 


66  avilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

laugh  to  the  wild  ass  as  he  goes  braying  unharnessed  by. 
But  look  there !  Arabian  blood,  and  British  bone !  Not 
bred  in  and  into  the  death  of  all  the  fine  strong  animal 
spirits — but  blood  intermingled  and  interfused  by  twenty 
crosses,  nature  exulting  in  each  successive  produce,  till 
her  power  can  no  farther  go,  and  in  yonder  glorious 
gray, 

"  Gives  the  world  assurance  of  a  horse  !" 

"  A  horse  I     A  horse  I     A  kingdom  for  a  horse  I" 

Form  the  three  hundred  into  squadron,  or  squadrons,  and 
in  the  hand  of  each  rider  a  sabre  alone,  none  of  your 
lances,  all  bare  his  breast  but  for  the  silver-laced  blue,  the 
gorgeous  uniform  of  the  hussars  of  England, — confound 
all  cuirasses  and  cuirassiers, — let  the  trumpet  sound  a 
charge,  and  ten  thousand  of  the  proudest  of  the  Barbaric 
chivalry  be  opposed  with  spear  and  scimitar, — and  through 
their  snow-ranks  will  the  three  hundred  go  like  thaw — 
splitting  them  into  dissolution  with  the  noise  of  thunder. 
t_  The  proof  of  the  pudding  is  in  the  eating  of  it ;  and 
where,  we  ask,  were  the  British  cavalry  ever  overthrown? 
And  how  could  the  great  north-country  horse-coupers 
perform  their  contracts,  but  for  the  triumphs  of  the  turf? 
Blood — blood  there  must  be,  either  for  strength,  or  speed, 
or  endurance.  The  very  heaviest  cavalry — the  Life  Guards 
and  the  Scots  Grays,  and  all  other  dragoons,  must  have 
blood.  But  without  racing  and  fox-hunting,  where  could  it 
be  found  ?  Such  pastimes  nerve  one  of  the  arms  of  the 
nation  when  in  battle ;  but  for  them  'twould  be  palsied. 
What  better  education,  too,  not  only  for  the  horse,  but 
rider,  before  playing  a  bloodier  game  in  his  first  war  cam- 
paign? Thus  he  becomes  demicorpsed  with  the  noble 
animal ;  and  what  easy,  equable  motion  to  him,  is  after- 
wards a  charge  over  a  wide  level  plain,  with  nothing  in 
the  way  but  a  fiiw  regiments  of  flying  Frenchmen  !  The 
liills  and  dales  of  merry  England  have  been  the  best 
riding-school  to  her  gentlemen — her  gentlemen  who  have 
not  lived  at  home  at  ease — but  with  Paget,  and  Stewart, 
and  Seymour,  and  Cotton,  and  Somerset,  and  V'ivian, 
have  left  their  heredilary  luills,  and  all  the  [)eaceful  pas- 


CHRISTOPHER  IN  HIS  SPORTING  JACKET.  67 

times  pursued  among  the  sylvan  scenery,  to  try  the  met- 
tle of  their  steeds,  and  cross  swords  with  the  vaunted 
Gallic  chivalry ;  and  still  have  they  been  in  the  shock  vic- 
torious ;  witness  the  skirmish  that  astonished  Napoleon 
at  Saldanha — the  overthrow  that  uncrowned  him  at 
Waterloo  ! 

"  Well,  do  you  know,  that  after  all  you  have  said,  Mr. 
North,  I  cannot  understand  the  passion  and  the  pleasure  of 
fox-hunting?     It  seems  to  me  both  cruel  and  dangerous." 

Cruelty  !  Is  there  cruelty  in  laying  the  rein  on  their 
necks,  and  delivering  them  up  to  their  high  condition — 
for  every  throbbing  vein  is  visible — at  the  first  full  burst 
of  that  maddening  cry,  and  letting  loose  to  their  delight 
the  living  thunderbolts?  Danger?  What  danger  but 
of  breaking  their  own  legs,  necks,  or  backs,  and  those  of 
their  riders?  And  what  right  have  you  to  complain  of 
that,  lying  all  3^our  length,  a  huge  hulking  fellow,  snoring 
and  snorting  half  asleep  on  a  sofa  sutTicient  to  sicken  a 
whole  street?  U'hat  though  it  be  but  a  smallish,  reddish- 
brown,  sharp-nosed  animal,  with  pricked-up  ears,  and 
passionately  fond  of  poultry,  that  they  pursue?  After  the 
first  tallyho,  Reynard  is  rarely  seen,  till  he  is  run  in 
upon — once  perhaps  in  the  whole  run,  skirting  a  wood, 
or  crossing  a  common.  It  is  an  idea  that  is  pursued, 
on  a  whirlwind  of  horses  to  a  storm  of  canine  music, — 
worthy,  both,  of  the  largest  lion  that  ever  leaped  among 
a  band  of  Moors,  sleeping  at  midnight  by  an  extinguished 
fire  on  the  African  sands.  There  is,  we  verily  believe 
it,  nothing  foxy  in  the  fancy  of  one  man  in  all  that  glo- 
rious field  of  three  hundred.  Once  off  and  away — 
while  wood  and  welkin  rings — and  nothing  is  felt — 
nothing  is  imaged  in  that  hurricane  flight,  but  scorn  of 
all  obstructions,  dikes,  ditches,  drains,  brooks,  palings, 
canals,  rivers,  and  all  the  impediments  reared  in  the 
way  of  so  many  rejoicing  madmen,  by  nature,  art,  and 
science,  in  an  inclosed,  cultivated,  civilized,  and  Christian 
country.  There  they  go — prince  and  peer,  baronet  and 
squire, — the  nobility  and  gentry  of  England,  the  flower 
of  the  men  of  the  earth,  each  on  such  steed  as  Pollux 
never  reined,  nor  Philip's  warlike  son — for  could  we  ima- 
gine Bucephalus  here,  ridden  by  his  own  tamer,  Alexan- 


68  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

der  would  be  thrown  out  during  the  very  first  hurst,  and 
glad  to  find  his  way  dismounted  to  a  village  alehouse  for 
a  pail  of  meal  and  water.  Hedges,  trees,  groves,  gardens, 
orchards,  woods,  farmhouses,  huts,  halls,  mansions,  palaces, 
spires,  steeples,  towers,  and  temples,  all  go  wavering  by, 
each  demigod  seeing,  or  seeing  them  not,  as  his  winged 
steed  skims  or  labours  along,  to  the  swelling  or  sinking 
music,  now  loud  as  a  near  regimental  band,  now  faint  as  an 
echo.  Far  and  wide  over  the  country  are  dispersed  the 
scarlet  runners — and  a  hundred  villagers  pour  forth  their 
admiring  swarms,  as  the  main  current  of  the  chase  roars 
by,  or  disparted  runlets  float  wearied  and  all  astray,  lost 
at  last  in  the  perplexing  woods.  Crash  goes  the  timber 
of  the  five-barred  gate, — away  over  the  ears,  flies  the  ex- 
rough  rider  in  a  surprising  somerset — after  a  succession 
of  stumbles,  down  is  the  gallant  gray  on  knees  and  nose, 
making  sad  work  among  the  fallow — friendship  is  a  fine 
thing,  and  the  story  of  Damon  and  Pythias  most  affecting 
indeed — but  Pylades  eyes  Orestes  on  his  back  sorely 
drowned  in  sludge,  and  tenderly  leaping  over  him  as  he 
lies,  claps  his  hand  to  his  ear,  and  with  a  "  hark  forward, 
tan-tivy  !"  leaves  him  to  remount,  lame  and  at  leisure 
— and  ere  the  fallen  has  risen  and  shook  himself,  is  round 
the  corner  of  the  white  village-church,  down  the  dell,  over 
the  brook,  and  close  on  the  heels  of  the  straining  pack, 
all  a-yell  up  the  hill  crowned  by  the  Squire's  Folly. 
"  Every  man  for  himself,  and  God  for  us  all,"  is  the 
devout  and  ruling  apothegm  of  the  day.  If  death  befall, 
what  wonder  ?  since  man  and  horse  are  mortal  ;  but 
death  loves  better  a  wide  soft  bed  with  quiet  curtains  and 
darkened  windows  in  a  still  room,  the  clergyman  in  the 
one  corner  with  his  prayers,  and  the  {)hysician  in  another 
with  his  pills,  making  assurance  doubly  sure,  and  prc-- 
vcnting  all  possibility  of  the  dying  Christian's  escape.  Let 
oak  branches  smite  the  too  slowly  stooping  skull,  or  rider's 
back  not  timely  levelled  with  his  steed's  ;  let  faithless 
bank  give  way,  and  bury  in  the  brook  ;  let  hidden  drain 
yield  to  fore-feet  and  work  a  sudden  wreck ;  let  old 
coal-pit,  with  briery  mouth,  betray ;  and  roaring  river 
bear  down  man  and  horse  to  banks  uiiscaleable  by  the 
very  VVel.'sh  goat  ;  let  duke's  or  earl's  son  go  sheer  over  a 


CHRISTOPHER    IN   UIS    SrORTING   JACKET.  69 

quarry  fifty  feet  deep,  and  as  many  high  ;  yet,  '<  without 
stop  or  stay,  down  the  rocky  way"  the  hunter  train  flows 
on  ;  for  the  music  grows  fiercer  and  more  savage, — lo!  all 
that  remains  together  of  the  pack,  in  far  more  dreadful 
madness  than  hydrophobia,  leaping  out  of  their  skins, 
under  insanity  from  the  scent,  now  strong  as  stink,  for 
V^ulpes  can  hardly  now  make  a  crawl  of  it ;  and  ere  he, 
they,  whipper-in,  or  any  one  of  the  other  three  demoniacs, 
have  time  to  look  in  one  another's  splashed  faces,  he 
is  torn  into  a  thousand  pieces,  gobbled  up  in  the  general 
growl ;  and  smug,  and  smooth,  and  dry,  and  warm,  and 
cozey,  as  he  was  an  hour  and  twenty-five  minutes  ago 
exactly,  in  his  furze-bush  in  the  cover, — he  is  now  piece- 
meal in  about  thirty  distinct  stomachs ;  and  is  he  not, 
pray,  well  ofT  for  sepulture  ? 


SOLILOQUY  ON  THE  ANNUALS. 

(Blackwood's  Edinburgh  ]\Iagazine,  1829.) 


Periodical  literature — how  sweet  is  the  name!  'Tis 
a  type  of  many  of  the  most  beautiful  things  and  events  in 
nature  ;  or  say,  rather,  that  they  are  types  o^  it — both  the 
flowers  and  the  stars.  As  to  flowers,  they  are  the  prettiest 
periodicals  ever  published  in  folio — the  leaves  are  wire- 
wove  and  hot-pressed  by  Nature's  self;  their  circulation 
is  wide  over  all  the  land  ;  from  castle  to  cottage  they  are 
regularly  taken  in  ;  as  old  age  bends  over  them,  his  youth 
is  renewed  ;  and  you  sec  childhood  poring  upon  them, 
prest  close  to  its  very  bosom.  Some  of  them  are  ephe- 
meral, and  their  contents  are  exhaled  between  the  rising 
and  setting  sun.  Once  a-week  others  break  through  their 
green,  pink,  or  crimson  cover  ;  and  how  delightful,  on  the 
seventh  day,  smiles  in  the  sunshine  the  Sabbath  flower — 
the  only  Sunday  publication  perused  without  blame  by  the 
most  religious — even  before  morning  prayer.  Each  month, 
indeed,  throughout  the  whole  year,  has  its  own  flower- 
periodical.  Some  are  annual,  some  biennial,  some  tri- 
ennial, and  there  are  perennials  that  seem  to  live  for  ever 
— and  yet  are  still  periodical — though  our  love  will  not 
allow  us  to  know  when  they  die,  and  ph(enix-like  reappear 
from  their  own  ashes.  So  much  for  flowers — typifying  or 
typified; — leaves  emblematical  of  pages — buds  of  binding 
— dcw-veils  of  covers — and  the  wafting  away  of  bloom 
and  fragrance  like  the  dissemination  of  fine  feelings,  bright 
fancies,  and  winged  thoughts  ! 

The  flowers  are  the  periodicals  of  the  earth — the  stars 
are  those  of  heaven.  With  what  unfailing  regularity  do 
the  numbers  issue  forth  !     Hesperus  and  Lucifer  !  ye  are 


SOLILOQUY    ON    THE    ANNUALS.  71 

one  concern  !  The  pole-star  is  studied  by  all  nations. 
How  beautiful  the  poetry  of  the  moon  !  On  what  subject 
does  not  the  sun  throw  light!  No  fear  of  hurting  your 
eyes  by  reading  that  fine  clear  large  type  on  that  softened 
])age.  Lo  !  as  you  turn  over,  one  blue,  another  yellow, 
and  another  green,  all,  all  alike  delightiul  to  the  pupil,  and 
dear  to  him  as  the  very  apple  of  his  eye !  Yes,  the  great 
periodical  press  of  heaven  is  unceasingly  at  work — night 
and  day  ;  and  though  even  it  has  been  taxed,  and  its  ema- 
nations confined,  still  their  circulation  is  incalculable  ;  nor 
have  we  yet  heard  that  Ministers  intend  instituting  any 
prosecution  against  it.  It  is  yet  free,  the  only  free  power 
all  over  the  world.  'Tis  indeed  like  the  air  we  breathe — 
if  we  have  it  not,  we  die  ! 

Look,  then,  at  all  our  paper  periodicals  \<^ith  pleasure, 
for  sake  of  the  flowers  and  the  stars.  Suppose  them  all 
extinct,  and  life  would  be  like  a  fiowerless  earth,  a  starless 
heaven.  We  should  soon  forget  the  seasons  themselves — 
the  days  of  the  week — and  the  weeks  of  the  month — and 
the  months  of  the  year — and  the  years  of  the  century — 
and  the  centuries  of  all  time — and  all  time  itself  flowing 
away  on  into  eternity.  The  periodicals  of  external  na- 
ture would  soon  all  lose  their  meaning,  were  there  no, 
longer  any  periodicals  of  the  soul.  These  are  the  lights 
and  shadows  of  life,  merrily  dancing  or  gravely  stealing 
over  the  dial ;  remembrancers  of  the  past — teachers  of 
the  present — prophets  of  the  future  hours.  Were  they  all 
dead,  spring  would  in  vain  renew  her  promise — wearisome 
would  be  the  long,  long,  interminable  summer  days — the 
fruits  of  autumn  would  tasle  fushionless — and  the  winter 
ingle  blink  mournfully  round  the  hearth.  What  are  the 
blessed  seasons  themselves,  in  nature  and  in  Thomson,  but 
periodicals  of  a  larger  growth?  They  are  the  parents,  or 
publishers,  or  editors,  of  all  the  others — principal  contri- 
butors— nay,  subscribers  too — and  may  their  pretty  family 
live  for  ever,  still  dying,  yet  ever  renewed,  and  on  the 
increase  every  year.  We  should  suspect  him  of  a  bad, 
black  heart,  who  loved  not  the  periodical  literature  of  earth 
and  sky — who  would  weep  not  to  see  one  of  its  flowers 
wither — one  of  its  stars  fall — one  beauty  to  die  on  its 
humble  bed — one  glory  to  drop  from  its  lofty  sphere.    Let 


72  avilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

them  bloom  and  burn  on — flowers  in  which  there  is  no 
poison,  stars  in  which  there  is  no  disease — wiaose  blossoms 
are  all  sweet,  and  whose  rays  are  all  sanative — both  alike 
steeped  in  dew,  and  both,  to  the  fme  ear  of  nature's  wor- 
shipper, bathed  in  music. 

Only  look  at  Maga  1  One  hundred  and  forty-eight 
months  old !  and  yet  lovely  as  maiden  between  frock  and 
gown — even  as  sweet  sixteen  !  Not  a  wrinkle  on  cheek 
or  forehead !     No  crow-foot  has  touched  her  eyes — 

"  Her  eye's  blue  languish,  and  her  golden  liair  !" 

Like  an  antelope  in  the  wilderness — or  swan  on  the  river — 
or  eagle  in  the  sky.  Dream  that  she  is  dead,  and  oh  ! 
what  a  world  !  Yet  die  she  must  some  day — so  must  the 
moon  and  stars.  Meanwhile  there  is  a  blessing  in  prayers — 
and  hark !  how  the  nations  cry,  "  Oh  !  Maga,  live  for 
ever !" 

We  often  pity  our  poor  ancestors.  How  they  contrived 
to  make  the  ends  meet,  surpasses  our  conjectural  powers. 
What  a  weary  waste  must  have  seemed  expanding  before 
their  eyes  between  morning  and  night  I  Don't  tell  us  that 
the  human  female  never  longs  for  other  pastime  than 

"  To  suckle  fools  and  chronicle  small  beer." 

True,  ladies  sighed  not  then  for  periodicals — but  there,  in 
the  depths  of  their  ignorance,  lay  their  utter  wretchedness. 
What!  keep  pickling  and  preserving  during  the  whole 
mortal  life  of  an  immortal  being !  Except  when  at  jelly, 
everlastingly  at  jam  !  The  soul  sickens  at  the  monotonous 
sweetness  of  such  a  wcrsh  existence.  True  that  many  sat 
all  life-long  at  needle-work  ;  but  is  not  that  a  very  sew-sew 
sort  of  life?  Then  oh  !  the  miserable  males  !  We  speak 
of  times  after  the  invention,  it  is  true,  of  printing — but  who 
read  what  were  called  books  then?  Books  !  no  more  like 
our  periodicals,  than  dry,  rotten,  worm-eaten,  fungous  logs 
are  like  green  living  leafy  trees,  laden  with  dews,  bees, 
and  birds,  in  the  musical  sunshine.  What  could  males  do 
then  but  yawn,  sleep,  snore,  guzzle,  guttle,  and  drink  till 
they  grew  dead  and  got  buried?  Fox-hunting  won't 
always  do — and  often  it  is  not  to  be  had  ;  who  can  be 
happy  with  his  gun  through  good  report  and  bad  report  in 


SOLILOQUY  ON  THE  ANNUALS.  73 

an  a'  day's  rain?  Small  amusement  in  fishing  in  muddy 
waters;  palls  upon  the  sense  quarrelling  with  neighbours 
on  points  of  etiquette  and  the  disputed  property  of  hedge- 
row trees;  a  fever  in  the  family  ceases  to  raise  the  pulse 
of  any  inmate,  except  the  patient;  death  itself  is  no  relief 
to  the  dulness  ;  a  funeral  is  little  better ;  the  yawn  of  the 
grave  seems  a  sort  of  unhallowed  mockery  ;  the  scutcheon 
hung  out  on  the  front  of  the  old  dismal  hall,  is  like  a 
sign  on  a  deserted  spittal ;  along  with  sables  is  worn  a 
suitable  stupidity  by  all  the  sad  survivers, — and  such, 
before  the  era  of  periodicals,  such  was  life  in — merry 
England.     Oh  !  dear  ! — oh  !  dear  me  ! 

We  shall  not  enter  into  any  historical  details — for  this 
is  not  a  monologue  for  the  Quarterly — but  we  simply 
assert,  that  in  the  times  we  allude  to  (don't  mention  dates) 
there  was  little  or  no  reading  in  England.  There  was 
neither  the  reading  fly  nor  the  reading  public.  What 
could  this  be  owing  to,  but  the  non-existence  of  periodicals  ? 
What  elderly-young  lady  could  be  expected  to  turn  from 
house  affairs,  for  example,  to  Spenser's  Fairy  Queen?  It 
is  a  long,  long,  long  poem,  that  Fairy  Queen  of  Spenser's  ; 
nobody,  of  course,  ever  dreamt  of  getting  through  it;  but 
though  you  may  have  given  up  all  hope  of  getting  through 
a  poem  or  a  wood,  you  expect  to  be  able  to  find  your  way 
back  again  to  the  spot  where  you  unluckily  got  in  ;  not  so, 
however,  with  the  Fairy  Queen.  BeautifuT  it  is  indeed, 
most  exquisitely  and  unapproachably  beautiful  in  many 
passages,  especially  about  ladies  and  ladies'  love  more 
than  celestial,  for  Venus  loses  in  comparison  her  lustre 
in  the  sky;  but  still  people  were  afraid  to  get  into  it 
then  as  now  ;  and  "  heavenly  Una,  with  her  milk-white 
lamb,"  lay  buried  in  dust.  As  to  Shakspeare,  we  can- 
not find  many  traces  of  him  in  the  domestic  occupations 
of  the  English  gentry  during  the  times  alluded  to ;  nor 
do  we  believe  that  the  character  of  Hamlet  was  at 
all  relished  in  their  halls,  though  perhaps  an  occasional 
squire  chuckled  at  the  humours  of  Sir  John  Falstaft".  We 
have  Mr.  Wordsworth's  authority  for  believing  that  Para- 
dise Lost  was  a  dead  letter,  and  John  Milton  virtually 
anonymous.  We  need  say  no  more.  Books  like  these, 
huge  heavy  vols.  lay  with  other  lumber  in  garrets  and 

VOL.    I.  7 


74  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

libraries.  As  yet,  periodical  literature  was  not;  and  the 
art  of  printing  seems  long  to  have  preceded  the  art  of 
reading.  It  did  not  occur  to  those  generations  that  books 
were  intended  to  be  read  by  people  in  general,  but  only  by 
the  select  few.  Whereas  now,  reading  is  not  only  one  of 
the  luxuries,  but  absolutely  one  of  the  necessaries  of  life, 
and  we  no  more  think  of  going  without  our  book  than 
without  our  breakfast ;  lunch  consists  now  of  veal-pies  and 
Venetian  Bracelets — we  still  dine  on  roast-beef,  but  with  it, 
instead  of  Yorkshire  pudding,  a  Scotch  novel — Thomas 
Campbell  and  Thomas  Moore  sweeten  tea  for  us — and  in 
"  Course  of  Time"  we  sup  on  a  Welsh  rabbit  and  a  reli- 
gious poem. 

We  have  not  time — how  can  we  ? — to  trace  the  history 
of  the  great  revolution.  But  a  great  revolution  there  has 
been,  from  nobody's  reading  any  thing,  to  every  body's 
reading  all  things ;  and  perhaps  it  began  with  that  good 
old  proser  Richardson,  the  father  of  Pamela,  Clarissa,  and 
Sir  Charles  Grandison.  He  seems  to  have  been  a  sort  of 
idiot,  who  had  a  strange  insight  into  some  parts  of  human 
nature,  and  a  tolerable  acquaintance  with  most  parts  of 
speech.  He  set  the  public  a-reading,  and  Fielding  and 
Smollett  shoved  her  on — till  the  Minerva  Press  took  her  in 
hand — and  then — the  periodicals.  But  such  periodicals  ! 
The  Gentleman's  Magazine — God  bless  it  then,  now,  and 
for  ever! — the  Monthly  Review,  the  Critical  and  the 
British  Critic !  The  age  had  been  for  some  years  literary, 
and  was  now  fast  becoming  periodical.  Magazines  multi- 
plied. Arose  in  glory  the  Edinburgh,  and  then  the  Quar- 
terly Review — Maga,  like  a  new  sun,  looked  out  from 
heaven — from  her  golden  urn  a  hundred  satellites  drew 
light — and  last  of  all,  "  the  planetary  five,"  the  annuals, 
hung  their  lamps  on  high  ;  other  similar  luminous  bodies 
emerged  from  ihc  clouds,  till  the  whole  circumference  was 
bcspaugled,  and  astronomy  became  the  favourite  study 
with  all  ranks  of  people,  from  the  king  upon  the  throne  to 
the  meanest  of  his  subjects.  Now,  will  any  one  presume 
to  deny,  that  this  has  been  a  great  change  to  the  better, 
and  that  there  is  now  something  worth  living  for  in  the 
world  .'  Look  at  our  literature  now,  and  it  is  all  periodi- 
cal together.     A  thousand  daily,  thrice-a-week,  twice-a- 


SOLILOQUY  ON  THE  ANNUALS.  75 

week,  weekly  newspapers,  a  hundred  monthlies,  fifty  quar- 
terlies, and  twenty-five  annuals !  No  mouth  looks  up 
now  and  is  not  fed  !  on  the  contrary,  we  are  in  danger  of 
being  crammed ;  an  empty  head  is  as  rare  as  an  empty 
stomach;  the  whole  day  is  one  meal,  one  physical,  moral, 
and  intellectual  feast ;  the  public  goes  to  bed  with  a  periodi- 
cal in  her  hand,  and  falls  asleep  with  it  beneath  her 
pillow. 

What  blockhead  thinks  now  of  reading  Milton,  or  Pope, 
or  Gray?  Paradise  Lost  is  lost ;  it  has  gone  to  the  devil. 
Pope's  Epistles  are  returned  to  the  dead-letter  office;  the 
age  is  too  loyal  for  "  ruin  seize  thee,  ruthless  king,"  and 
the  oldest  inhabitant  has  forgotten  "  the  curfew  tolls." 

All  the  great  geniuses  of  the  day  are  periodical.  The 
Scotch  novels — the  Irish  novels — the  English  novels — the 
American  novels — the  Family  Library — the  Library  of 
Useful  and  Entertaining  Knowledge — Napier's  History  of 
the  Spanish  War — Tytler's  History  of  Scotland — Chal- 
mer's  Civic  Economy — but  what  is  the  need  of  enumera- 
tion— every  work  worth  reading  is  published  in  numbers, 
from  the  Excursion — being  a  portion  belonging  to  the  third 
part  of  that  long,  laborious,  and  philosophical  poem,  the 
Recluse,  by  William  Wordsworth — down  to  the  first  six 
books  of  that  long,  laborious,  and  unphilosophical  poem, 
Nineveh,  by  Edwin  Atherstone. 

What  donkey  was  the  first  to  bray  that  the  annuals,  the 
subject  of  this  our  monologue,  were  introduced  into  this 
country  from  Germany  1  Gentle  reader,  did  you  oversee 
a  German  annual  or  literary  almanac?  Wo  beseech  you 
look  not  at  any  one  print,  if  you  do  not  wish  to  die  of 
laughing — to  fall  into  gufiaw-convulsions.  Such  a  way  of 
making  love  !  But  you  know  better — you  know  that  the 
annuals  are  a  native  growth  of  the  soil  of  England,  spring- 
ing up,  like  white  and  red  clover  beneath  lime  (a  curious 
fact  that)  wherever  the  periodical  ploughshare  has  drawn 
its  furrows.  Import  what  seeds,  germs,  roots,  or  plants, 
you  choose  from  Germany ;  sow  them ;  dibble  them  in  ; 
and  in  a  week,  it  matters  not  whether  the  weather  be  wet 
or  dry,  they  are  all  dead  as  David's  sow.  We  want  none 
of  your  German  horticulture,  or  agriculture,  or  arboricul- 
ture in  Britain.     Let  us  grow  our  own  flowers,  and  our 


76  Wilson's  jijscellaneous  writings. 

own  corn,  and  our  own  trees,  and  we  shall  be  well  ofl'  for 
fragrance,  for  food,  and  for  shelter. 

But  lo !  arrayed  in  figure  of  a  fan,  and  gorgeous  as 
spread-peacock-lail — the  annuals  !  The  sunshine  strikes 
the  intermingled  glow,  and  it  threatens  to  set  the  house 
on  fire.  But  softly — they  are  cool  to  the  touch,  though 
to  the  sight  burning ;  innocuous  is  the  lambent  flame  that 
plays  around  the  leaves;  even  as,  in  a  dewy  night  of 
fading  summer,  the  grass-brightening  circle  of  the  still 
glowworm's  light ! 

Singular!  They  have  formed  themselves  into  classes 
beneath  our  touch — according  to  some  fine  affinities  of 
name  and  nature ;  and  behold  in  one  triad,  the  Forget- 
Me-Not,  the  Souvenir,  and  the  Keepsake. 

One  word  embraces  them  all — memorials.  When 
"  absent  long,  and  distant  far,"  the  living,  lovely,  loving, 
and  beloved,  how  often  are  they  utterly  forgotten  I  But 
let  something  that  once  was  theirs  suddenly  meet  our 
eyes,  and  in  a  moment,  returning  from  the  region  of  the 
rising  or  the  setting  sun,  lo !  the  friend  of  our  youth  is  at 
our  side,  unchanged  his  voice  and  his  smile ;  and  dearer 
to  our  eyes  than  ever,  because  of  some  slight,  faint,  and 
affecting  change  wrought  on  face  and  figure  by  climate 
and  by  years !  Let  it  be  but  his  name  written  with  his 
own  hand,  on  the  title-page  of  a  book  ;  or  a  few  syllables 
on  the  margin  of  a  favourite  passage  which  long  ago  we 
may  have  read  together,  "  when  life  itself  was  new,"  and 
])oetry  overflowed  the  whole  world!  Or  a  lock  oHier  hair 
in  whose  eyes  we  first  knew  the  meaning  of  the  word 
"  depth"  applied  to  the  human  soul,  or  the  celestial  sky  ! 
But  oh  !  if  death  hath  stretched  out  and  out  into  the  dim 
arms  of  eternity  the  distance — and  removed  away  into 
that  bourne  from  which  no  traveller  returns  the  absence 
— of  her  on  whose  forehead  once  hung  the  relic  we  adore 
in  our  despair — what  heart  may  abide  the  beauty  of  the 
ghost  that,  as  at  the  touch  of  a  talisman,  doth  sometimes 
at  midnight  appear  before  our  sleepless  bed,  and  with  i)ale, 
uplifled  arms  waft  over  us — so  momentary  is  the  vision — 
at  once  a  blessing  and  a  farewell ! 

But  we  must  be  cheerful,  for  these  arc  cheerful  volumes, 
and   they    are   bound   in   smiles.     Yet   often   "  cheerful 


SOLILOaUY  ON  THE  ANNUALS.  77 

thoughts  bring  sad  thoughts  to  the  mind,"  and  the  eye 
slides  away  insensibly  iVom  the  sunshine  to  the  cloud- 
shadows,  feeling  that  they  are  bound  together  in  beauty 
by  one  spirit.  Why  so  sad  a  word — farewell?  We 
should  not  weep  in  wishing  welfare,  nor  sully  felicity 
with  tears.  But  we  do  weep,  because  evil  lies  lurking  in 
wait  over  all  the  earth  for  the  innocent  and  the  good,  the 
happy  and  the  beautiful,  and  when  guarded  no  more  by 
our  eyes,  it  seems  as  if  the  demon  would  leap  out  upon 
his  prey.  Or  is  it  because  we  are  so  selfish  that  we  can- 
not bear  the  thought  of  losing  the  sight  of  the  happiness 
of  one  we  dearly  love,  and  are  troubled  with  a  strange 
jealousy  and  envy  of  beings  unknown  to  us,  and  for  ever 
to  be  unknown,  about  to  be  taken  into  the  very  heart, 
perhaps,  of  the  friend  from  whom  we  part,  and  to  whom 
we  breathe  a  sad,  almost  a  sullen,  yet  still  a  sweet  fare- 
well? Or  does  the  shadow  of  death  pass  over  us  while 
we  stand  for  the  last  time  together  on  the  sea-shore,  and 
see  the  ship  with  all  her  sails  about  to  voyage  away  to 
the  uttermost  parts  of  the  earth  ?  Or  do  we  shudder  at 
the  thought  of  mutability  in  all  created  things,  insensate 
or  with  soul — and  know  that  ere  a  few  hours  shall  have 
brightened  the  path  of  the  swift  vessel  on  the  far-off  sea, 
we  shall  be  dimly  remembered — alas  !  at  last  forgotten, 
and  all  those  days,  months,  and  years,  that  once  seemed 
as  if  they  would  never  die,  swallowed  up  in  everlasting 
oblivion? 


THEODORA. 

(Blackwood's  Kcliiiburgh  Magazine,  1830.) 


It  must  be  a  heavenly  life — wedlock — with  one  wife  and 
one  daughter.  Not  that  people  may  not  be  happy  with  a 
series  of  spouses,  and  five-and-twenty  children  all  in  a  row. 
But  we  prefer  still  to  stirring  life — and  therefore,  oh  !  for 
one  wife  and  one  daughter  !  What  a  dear  delightful  girl 
would  she  not  have  been  by  this  time,  if  born  in  the  famous 
vintage  of  1811 — the  year,  too,  of  the  no  less  famous  co- 
met 1  But  then — in  spite  of  all  her  filial  affection,  speaking 
in  silvery  sound,  and  smiling  in  golden  light,  she  would, 
in  all  human  probability,  have  been  forsaking  her  old 
father  this  very  month ;  without  compunction  or  remorse, 
forgetting  her  mother;  and  even  like  a  fair  cloud  on  the 
mountain's  breast,  cleaving  unto  her  husband  !  Such  sepa- 
ration would  to  us  have  been  insupi^ortable.  Talk  not  of 
grandchildren,  for  they  come  but  to  toddle  over  your  grave ; 
— as  for  son-in-law,  they  are  sulky  about  settlements,  and 
wish  you  dead  ; — every  man  of  feeling  and  every  man  of 
the  world,  too,  knows  that  his  last  day  of  perfect  happi- 
ness is  that  on  W'hich  he  sees  his  only  daughter  a  bride. 

But  let  us  not  run  into  the  melancholies.  We  wish — 
notwithstanding  all  this — that  we  had  now — one  wife — 
one  single  wife — and  one  only  daughter.  Ourselves  about 
fifty — my  dear  some  six  summers  farther  off  heaven — and 
my  darling,  "beautiful  exceedingly,"  on  the  brink  of  her 
expiring  teens !  Ay,  we  would  have  shown  the  world 
"  how  divine  a  thing  a  woman  might  be  made."  Our 
child  would  have  seemed — alternately — Una — Juliet — Des- 
demona — Imogen  ;  for  those  bright  creatures  were  all  kith 
and  kin,  and  the  angelical  family  expression  would,  after 


THEODORA.  79 

a  sleep  of  centuries,  have  broken  out  in  beauty  over  the 
countenance  of  their  fair  cousin,  Theodora  North  ! 

"And  pray,  sir,  may  I  ask  how  you  would  have  edu- 
cated your  sweet  scion  of  the  rising  sun  ?" — whispers  a 
dowager  now  at  her  third  husband,  and  therefore  at  pre- 
sent somewhat  sarcastically  inclined  towards  bachelors  of 
a  certain  age.  We  answer  susurringly.  "  Think  not, 
madam,  though  we  have  hitherto  been  the  most  barren, 
and  you  the  most  prolific  of  the  children  of  men,  that, 
therefore,  were  a  daughter  yet  to  be  born  to  us,  we  should 
show  ourselves  ignorant  of  the  principles  of  female  educa- 
tion. There  was  Miss  Hamilton — and  there  is  Miss  Edge- 
worth,  who  never  had  a  child  in  their  lives — though  you 
have  had  a  score  and  upwards — yet  each  of  them  writes 
about  children  as  well  or  better  than  if  she  had  had  bant- 
ling after  bantling  annually,  ever  since  the  short  peace  of 
1802.  So  are  we — to  our  shame  be  it  spoken — childless; 
that  is,  in  the  flesh,  but  not  in  the  spirit.  In  the  spirit  we 
have  had  for  nearly  twenty  years — an  only  daughter — and 
her  Christian  and  Scriptural  name  is  Theodora — the  gift 
of  God!" 

Some  day  or  other  wc  intend  publishing  a  poem  with 
that  title,  which  has  been  lying  by  us  for  several  years — 
but  meanwhile,  let  us,  gentle  reader,  as  if  in  a  "  twa- 
haun'd  crack,"  chit-chat  away  together  about  those  ideal 
daughters,  of  whom  almost  every  man  has  one — two — 
or  three — as  it  happens — and  whose  education  he  conducts, 
after  a  dreamy  mode  it  is  true,  yet  not  untrue  to  the  genial 
process  of  nature,  in  the  school-room  of  imagination. 

The  great  thing  is,  to  keep  them  out  of  harm's  way. 
Now,  surely  that  is  not  hard  to  do,  even  in  a  wicked  world. 
There  is  a  good  deal  of  thieving  and  robbing  going  on,  all 
round  about  villages,  towns,  and  cities,  especially  of  flowers 
and  vegetables.  Yet,  look  at  those  pretty  smiling  subur- 
ban gardens,  where  rose-tree  and  pear-tree  are  all  in  full 
blossom  or  bearing,  not  a  stalk  or  branch  broken ; — nor 
Has  the  enormous  Newfoundlander  in  yonder  kennel  been 
heard  barking,  except  in  sport,  for  a  twelvemonth.  Just 
so  with  the  living  flower  beneath  your  eye  in  your  own 
Eden — 


80  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

No  need  for  you  to  growl, 
Be  mute — but  be  at  home. 

Not  a  hair  of  her  head  shall  be  touched  by  evil ;  it  is  guard- 
ed by  the  halo  of  its  own  innocence ;  and  you  feel  tliat 
every  evening  when  you  press  it  to  your  heart,  and  dis- 
miss the  pretty  creature  to  her  bed  with  a  parental  prayer. 
It  is,  then,  the  easiest  of  all  things  to  keep  your  rose  or 
your  lily  out  of  harm's  way  ;  for  thither  the  dewy  gales  of 
gladness  will  not  carry  her ;  in  sunlight,  and  moonlight, 
and  in  utter  darkness,  her  beauty  is  safe — if  you  but  knew 
what  holy  duties  descended  upon  you  from  heaven  the 
moment  she  was  born,  and  that  the  God-given  must  be 
God-restored  out  of  your  own  hand  at  the  last  day  ! 

But  we  are  getting  too  serious — so  let  us  be  merry  as 
well  as  wise — yet  still  keep  chatting  about  Theodora.  She 
has,  indeed,  a  fine  temper.  Then  we  defy  Fate  and  For- 
tune to  make  her  miserable,  for  as  long  a  time  as  is  neces- 
sary to  boil  an  egg — neither  hard  nor  soft — three  minutes 
and  a  half;  for  Fate  and  Fortune  are  formidable  only  to  a 
female  in  the  sulks ;  and  the  smile  in  a  serene  eye  scares 
them  away  to  their  own  dominions.  Temper  is  the  atmo- 
sphere of  the  soul.  When  it  is  mild,  pure,  fresh,  clear, 
and  bright,  the  soul  breathes  happiness ;  w  hen  it  is  hot 
and  troubled,  as  if  there  were  thunder  in  the  air,  the  soul 
inhales  misery,  and  is  aweary  of  very  life.  Yet  there  are 
times  and  places,  seasons  and  scenes,  when  and  where  the 
atmosphere,  the  temper  of  every  human  soul,  is  like  the 
foul  air  or  damp  in  a  coal-pit.  The  soul  at  work  sets  fire 
to  it,  by  a  single  spark  of  passion;  and  there  is  explosion 
and  death.  But  religion  puts  into  the  hand  of  the  soul  her 
safety-lamp;  and,  so  guarded,  she  comes  uninjured  out  of 
the  darkest  and  deepest  pit  of  Erebus. 

You  have  kept  your  Theodora,  we  hope,  out  of  harm's 
way  ;  and  cherished  in  her  a  heavenly  temper.  The  crea- 
ture is  most  religious;  of  all  books  she  loves  best  her 
Bible;  of  all  days  most  blessed  to  her  is  the  Sabbath.  She 
goeth  but  to  one  church.  That  one  pew  is  a  pleasant 
place,  hung  round  by  holy  thoughts,  as  with  garlands  of 
flowers,  whose  bloom  is  perennial,  and  whose  balm  breathes 
of  a  purer  region.     The  morning  and  the  evening  of  each 


THEODORA.  81 

week-day  has  still  to  her  something  of  a  Sabbath  feeling — 
a  solemnity  that  sweetly  yields  to  the  gladness  and  gaiety 
of  life's  human  hours,  whether  the  sunlight  be  astir  in 
every  room  of  the  busy  house,  or  the  "  parlour-twilight" 
illumined  by  the  fitful  hearth,  that  seems  ever  and  anon 
to  be  blinking  lovingly  on  the  domestic  circle.  Humble 
in  her  happiness — fearful  of  offence  to  the  Being  from  whom 
it  is  all  felt  to  flow — affectionate  to  her  earthly  parents,  as 
if  she  were  yet  a  little  child — pensive  often  as  evening, 
yet  oftener  cheerful  as  dawn — what  fears  need  you  have 
for  your  Theodora,  or  why  should  her  smiles  sometimes 
affect  you  more  than  any  tears? 

Can  a  creature  so  young  and  fair  have  any  duties  to 
perform  ?  Or  will  not  all  good  deeds  rather  flow  from  her 
as  unconsciously  as  the  rays  from  her  dewy  eyes?  No — 
she  ^is  not  the  mere  child  of  impulse.  In  her  bosom — 
secret  and  shady  as  is  that  sacred  recess — feeling  has 
grown  up  in  the  light  of  thought.  Simple,  indeed,  is  her 
heart,  but  wise  in  its  simplicity ;  innocence  sees  far  and 
clear  with  her  dove-like  eyes;  unfaltering  where'er  they 
go,  be  it  even  among  the  haunts  of  sin  and  sorrow,  may 
well  be  the  feet  of  her  who  duly  bends  her  knees  in  prayer 
to  the  Almighty  Guide  through  this  life's  most  mortal 
darkness ;  and  "  greater  far  than  she  knows  herself  to 
be,"  is  the  young  Christian  lady,  who  sees  a  sister  in  the 
poor  sinner  that  in  her  hovel  has  ceased  even  to  hope ;  but 
who  all  at  once  on  some  gracious  hour,  beholds,  as  if  it 
were  an  angel  from  heaven,  the  face  of  one  coming  in  her 
charity  to  comfort  and  to  reclaim  the  guilty,  and  to  save 
both  soul  and  body  from  death. 

Yes,  Theodora  has  her  duties  ;  on  them  she  meditates 
both  day  and  night ;  seldom  for  more  than  an  hour  or  two, 
are  they  entirely  out  of  her  thoughts  ;  and  sometimes  does 
a  faint  shadow  fall  on  the  brightness  of  her  countenance, 
even  during  the  mirth  which  heaven  allows  to  innocence, 
the  blameless  mirth  that  emanates  in  the  voice  of  song 
from  her  breast, — even  as  a  bird  in  spring,  that  warbles 
thick  and  fast  from  the  top-spray  of  a  tree  in  the  sunshine, 
all  at  once  drops  down  in  silence  to  its  nest.  A  life  of 
duty  is  the  only  cheerful  life ;  for  all  joy  springs  from  the 
affections  ;  and  'tis  the  great  law  of  nature,  that  without 


82  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

good  deeds,  all  good  affecfion  dies,  and  the  heart  becomes 
utterly  desolate.  The  external  world,  too,  then  loses  all  its 
beauty ;  poetry  fades  away  from  the  earth  ;  for  what  is 
poetry,  but  the  reflection  of  all  pure  and  sweet,  all  high  and 
holy  thoughts?     But  where  duty  is, 

"  Flowers  laugh  beneath  her  in  their  beds, 
And  fragrance  in  her  footing  treads ; — 
She  doth  preserve  the  stars  from  wrong. 
And  tiie  eternal  heavens,  through  her,  are  fresli  and  strong." 

And  what  other  books,  besides  her  Bible,  doth  Theodora 
read?  History,  to  be  sure,  and  romances,  and  voyages 
and  travels,  and — poetry.  Preaching  and  praying  is  not 
the  whole  of  religion.  Sermons,  certainly,  are  very  spi- 
ritual, especially  Jeremy  Taylor's;  but  so  is  Spenser's 
Fairy  Queen,  if  we  mistake  not,  and  Milton's  Paradise 
Lost.  What  a  body  of  divinity  in  those  two  poems! 
This  our  Theodora  knows,  nor  fears  to  read  them, — even 
on  the  Sabbath  day.  Not  often  so,  perhaps ;  but  as  often 
as  the  pious  spirit  of  delight  may  prompt  her  to  worship 
her  Creator  through  the  glorious  genius  of  his  creatures! 

And  what  may  be  the  amusements  of  our  Theodora? 
Whatever  her  own  heart — thus  instructed  and  guarded — 
may  desire.  No  nun  is  she — no  veil  hath  she  taken — 
.but  the  veil  which  nature  weaves  of  mantling  blushes,  and 
modesty  sometimes  lets  drop,  but  for  a  few  moments,  over 
the  reddening  rose-glow  on  the  virgin's  cheeks.  All  round 
and  round  her  own  home,  as  the  centre,  expand  before 
her  happy  eyes,  the  many  concentric  circles  of  social  life. 
She  regards  them  ail  with  liking  or  with  love,  and  has 
showers  of  smiles  and  of  tears  too  to  scatter,  at  the  touch 
of  joys  or  sorrows  that  come  not  too  near  her  heart,  while 
yet  they  touch  its  strings.  Of  many  of  the  festivities  of 
this  world — ay,  even  of  this  wicked  world — she  partakes 
with  a  gladsome  sympathy — and,  would  you  believe  it? — 
Theodora  sometimes  dances,  and  goes  to  concerts  and 
plays,  and  sings  herself  like  St.  Cecilia,  till  a  drawing- 
room  in  a  city,  with  a  hundred  living  people,  is  as  luished 
as  a  tomb  full  of  skeletons  in  some  far-oif  forest  beyond 
the  reach  of  the  voice  of  river  or  sea  ! 

Now,  were  you  to  meet  our  Theodora   in  company. 


THEODORA.  83 

ten  to  one  you  would  not  know  it  was  she;  possibly  you 
might  not  see  any  thing  very  beautiful  about  her;  for  the 
beauty  we  love  strikes  not  by  a  sudden  and  single  blow, — 
but — allow  us  another  simile — is  like  the  vernal  sunshine, 
still  steal,  steal,  stealing  through  a  dim,  tender,  pensive 
sky,  and  even  when  it  has  reached  its  brightest,  tempered 
and  subdued  by  a  fleecy  veil  of  clouds.  To  some  eyes 
such  a  spring-day  has  but  little  loveliness,  and  passes 
away  unregarded  over  the  earth  ;  but  to  others  it  seemeth 
a  day  indeed  born  in  heaven,  nor  is  it  ever  forgotten  in 
the  calendar  kept  in  common  by  the  imagination  and  the 
heart. 

Would  you  believe  it? — our  Theodora  is  fond  of  dress  ! 
Rising  up  from  her  morning  prayer,  she  goes  to  her  mir- 
ror ;  and  the  beauty  of  her  own  face — though  she  is  not 
philosopher  enough  to  know  the  causes  of  effects — makes 
her  happy  as  day-dawn.  Ten  minutes  at  the  least — and 
never  was  time  better  employed — has  the  fair  creature 
been  busy  with  her  ten  delicate  fingers  and  thumbs  in 
tricking  her  hair; — ten  more  in  arranging  the  simple 
adornment  of  her  person  ;  and  a  final  ten  in  giving,  ever 
and  anon,  sometimes  before  the  mirror,  and  sometimes 
away  from  it,  those  skilful  little  airy  touches  to  the 
toute-e7isembIe,  which  a  natural  sense  of  grace  and  elegance 
can  alone  bestow — of  which  never  was  so  consummate  a 
mistress — and  of  which  Minerva  knew  no  more  than  a 
modern  Blue.  Down  she  comes  to  the  breakfast-table  ; 
for  a  spring-shower  has  prevented  her  from  taking  her 
morning  walk ; — down  she  comes  to  the  breakfast-table, 
and  her  presence  difTuses  a  new  light  over  the  room,  as  if 
a  shutter  had  been  suddenly  opened  to  the  east. 


DESCRIPTIVE  POETRY. 

(Blackwood's  Edinburgh  Magazine,  1830.) 


Descrii'tive  poetry  is  citlicr  the  most  dull  or  the  most 
delightful  thing  in  the  united  kingdoms  of  art  and  nature.  To 
write  it  well,  you  must  see  with  your  eyes  shut — no  such 
easy  operation.  But  to  enable  you  to  see  with  your  eyes  shut, 
you  must  begin  with  seeing  with  your  eyes  open — an  opera- 
tion,also,  of  much  greater  difficulty  than  is  generally  ima- 
gined— and  indeed  not  to  be  well  performed  by  one  man  in  a 
thousand.  Seeing  with  your  eyes  open  is  a  very  compli- 
cated concern — as  it  obviously  must  be,  when  perhaps 
fifty  church-spires,  and  as  many  more  barns,  some  mil- 
lions of  trees,  and  hay-stacks  innumerable,  hills  and  plains 
without  end,  not  to  mention  some  scores  of  cities,  towns, 
villages,  and  hamlets,  are  all  impressed — tiny  images — on 
each  retina — which  tiny  images  the  mind  must  see  as  in 
reflection  within  these  miraculous  mirrors.  She  is  apt  to 
get  confused  amidst  that  bewildering  conglomeration — to 
mistake  one  object  for  another — to  displace  and  disarrange 
to  the  destruction  of  all  harmonies  and  proportions — and 
finally,  to  get,  if  not  stone — at  least,  what  is  perhaps 
worse,  sand-blind.  The  moment  she  opens  her  mouth  to 
discourse  of  these  her  perceptions,  Ihe  old  lady  is  apt  to 
wax  so  confused,  that  you  unjustly  suspect  her  of  a  bad 
liabit ;  and  as  soon  as  she  winks,  or  shuts  her  eyes,  begins 
prosing  away  from  memory,  till  you -lose  all  belief  in  the 
existence  of  the  external  world.  Chaos  is  come  again — 
and  old  John  Nox  introduces  you  to  Somnus.  The  poem 
falls  out  of  your  hand — for  we  shall  suppose  a  poem — a 
composing  draft  of  a  descriptive  poem  to  have  been  in  it — 
but  not  till  5'ou  have  swallowed  sufficient  of  one  dose  to 
produce  another  dnzc  that  ihreatens  to  last  till  doomsday. 


DESCRIPTIVE  POETRY.  85 

We  really  cannot  take  it  upon  ourselves  to  say  what  is 
the  best  mode  of  composition  for  a  gentleman  or  lady  of 
poetical  propensities  to  adopt  with  respect  to  a  descriptive 
poem — whether  to  sketch  it,  and  lay  the  colours  on — abso- 
lutely to  finish  it  off  entirely — in  the  open  air,  sitting  under 
the  shade  of  an  elm,  or  an  umbrella  ;  or  from  a  mere  out- 
line, drawn  sub  dio,  to  work  up  the  picture  to  perfect 
beauty,  in  a  room  with  one  window,  looking  into  a  back- 
court  inhabited  by  a  couple  of  cockless  hens,  innocent  of 
cackle.  Both  modes  are  dangerous — full  of  peril.  In  the 
ont',  some  great  Gothic  cathedral  is  apt  to  get  into  the 
foreground,  to  the  exclusion  of  the  whole  country;  in  the 
other,  the  scenery  too  often  retires  away  back  by  much 
too  fiir  into  the  distance — the  groves  look  small,  and  the 
rivers  sing  small — and  all  nature  is  like  a  drowned  rat. 

The  truth  is — and  it  will  out — that  the  poet  alone  sees 
this  world.  Nor  does  it  make  the  slightest  difference  to 
him  whether  his  eyes  are  open  or  shut — in  or  out — bright 
as  stars,  or  "  with  dim  suffusion  veiled" — provided  only 
the  iris  of  each  "  particular  orb"  has,  through  tears  of  love 
and  joy,  been  permitted  for  some  twenty  years,  or  there- 
abouts, to  span  heaven  and  earth,  like  seeing  rainbows. 
All  the  imagery  it  ever  knows  has  been  gathered  up  by 
the  perceiving  soul  during  that  period  of  time — afterwards 
'tis  the  divining  soul  that  works — and  it  matters  not  then 
whether  the  material  organ  be  covered  with  day  or  with 
night.  Milton  saw  without  eyes  more  of  the  beauty 
and  sublimity  of  the  heavens  than  any  man  has  ever 
done  since  with  eyes — except  Wordsworth  ; — and  were 
Wordsworth  to  lose  his  eyes — which  heaven  forbid — still 
would  he 

"  Walk  in  glory  and  in  joy, 
Following  his  soul  upon  the  mountain  side." 

The  sole  cause  of  all  this  power  possessed  by  the  poet  over 
nature,  is  the  spirit  of  delight,  the  sense  of  beauty,  in 
which,  from  the  dawning  of  moral  and  intellectual  thought, 
lie  has  gazed  upon  all  her  aspects.  He  has  always  felt 
towards  her  "  as  a  lover  or  a  child" — she  hath  ever  been 
his  mother — his  sister — his  bride — his  wife — all  in  one 


86  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

wonderful  living  charm  breathed  over  the  shapings  of  his 
brain  and  the  yearnings  of  his  blood  ; — and  no  wonder 
that  all  her  sights  dwell  for  ever  and  ever  in  the  fountains 
of  his  eyes,  and  all  lier  sounds  in  the  fountains  of  his  ears 
— for  what  are  these  fountains  but  the  depths  and  recesses 
of  his  own  happy  yet  ever  agitated  heart.' 

A  poet,  then,  at  all  times,  whether  he  will  or  not,  com- 
merces with  the  skies,  and  with  the  seas,  and  with  the 
earth,  in  a  language  of  silent  symbols;  and  when  he  lays 
it  aside,  and  longs  to  tell  correctly  of  what  he  sees  and 
feels  to  his  brethren  of  mankind  not  so  gifted  by  God, 
though  then  he  must  adopt  their  own  language,  the  only 
one  they  understand,  yet  from  his  lips  it  becomes,  while 
still  human,  an  angelic  speech.  Ay — even  their  home- 
liest phrases — their  everyday  expressions — in  which  they 
speak  of  life's  dullest  goings-on  and  most  unimpassioned 
procedure — seem  kindled  as  by  a  coal  from  heaven,  and 
prose  brightens  into  poetry.  True,  that  the  poet  selects 
all  his  words — but  he  selects  them  in  a  spirit  of  inspiration, 
which  is  a  discriminating  spirit — as  well  as  a  moving  and 
creating  spirit.  All  that  is  unfit  for  his  high  and  holy 
purpose,  of  itself  fades  away;  and  out  of  all  that  is  fit, 
genius,  true  to  nature,  chooses  whatever  is  fittest — out  of 
the  good — the  best.  Not  with  a  finer,  surer  instinct,  fiies 
the  bee  from  flower  to  flower — touching  but  for  a  moment, 
like  a  shadow,  on  the  bloom  where  no  honey  is — and 
where  that  ambrosia  lies,  piercing  with  passion  into  the 
rose's  heart.  Poetical  language,  indeed — who  may  tell 
what  it  is?  What  else  can  it  be  but  poetry  itself?  And 
what  is  poetry — we  know  not — though  "  our  heart  leaps 
u|)  when  we  behold"  it — even  as  at  sight  of  a  something  in 
the  sky — faint  at  first  as  a  tinging  dream,  cloud-born — but 
growing  gradually  out  of  the  darkness  of  the  showery 
sky — child  of  the  sun — dying  almost  as  soon  as  born — 
yet  seeming  to  be  a  creature — a  being — a  living  thing 
that  might  endure  for  ever — and  not  a  mere  apparition, 
too,  too  soon  deserting  the  earth  and  the  heaven  it  has 
momentarily  glorified  with  a — rainbow  ! 

But  is  poetry  indeed  thus  evanescent?  Yes — in  the 
poet's  soul.  For  it  is  produced  upon  the  shadowy  and 
showerv  background  of  the  imagination,  bv  genius  shin- 


DESCRIPTIVE  POETRY.  87 

ing  upon  it  sunlike  ;  that  visionary  world  fades  away,  and 
leaves  him  "  shorn  of  his  beams,"  like  a  common  man  in 
this  common  world  ;  but  words  once  uttered  may  live  ibr 
ever — in  that  lies  their  superiority  over  clouds  ;  and  thus 
poetry — when  printed  by  Bensley  or  Ballantyne — becomes 
a  stationary  world  of  rainbows.  And  there  are  ways — 
sacred  ways  which  religion  teaches — of  preserving  in  the 
spirit  of  men  who  read  poetry — even  till  their  dying  day 
— that  self-same  ecstasy  with  which  Noah  and  his  chil- 
dren first  beheld  the  arch  of  promise. 

There  was  a  long  period  of  our  poetry,  during  which  poets 
paid,  apparently,  little  or  no  devotion  to  external  nature; 
when  she  may  be  said  to  have  lain  dead.  Perhaps,  we  poets 
of  this  age  pay  her — we  must  not  say  too  much  homage — 
but  too  much  tribute — as  if  she  exacted  it — whereas  it  ought 
all  tobe  a  free-will  offering,  spontaneousas  the  flower-growth 
of  the  hills.  It  is  possible  to  be  religious  overmuch  at  her 
shrine — to  deal  in  long  prayers,  and  longer  sermons,  for- 
getting to  draw  the  practical  conclusions.  Without  know- 
ing it,  we  may  become  formalists  in  our  worship ;  nay, 
even  hypocrites  ;  for  all  moods  of  mind  are  partly  hypo- 
critical that  arc  not  thoroughly  sincere — and  truth  abhors 
exaggeration.  True  passion  is  often  sparing  of  words  ; 
compressedly  eloquent;  not  doting  upon  and  fondling 
mere  forms,  but  carrying  its  object  by  storm — spirit  by 
spirit — a  conflict — a  catastrophe — and  peace.  There  is 
rather  too  long  a  courtship — too  protracted  a  wooing  of 
nature  now  by  shilly-shallying  bards;  they  do  not  suffi- 
ciently insist  on  her,  their  bride,  naming  the  nuptial  day; 
some  of  them  would  not  for  the  world  run  away  with  her 
to  Gretna-Green.  They  get  too  philosophical — too  Pla- 
tonic ;  amicitia  seems  their  watchword  rather  than  amor; 
and  the  consequence  is,  that  nature  is  justified  in  jilting 
them,  and  privately  espousing  a  mate  of  more  flesh  and 
blood — Passion,  who  not  only  pops  the  question,  but  insi- 
nuates a  suit  of  saffron,  and  takes  the  crescent  honeymoon 
by  the  horns.  Nature  does  not  relish  too  metaphysical  a 
suitor  ;  she  abhors  all  that  is  gross,  but  still  loves  some- 
thing in  a  tangible  shape  ;  no  cloud  herself,  she  hates 
being  embraced  by  a  cloud  ;  and  her  chaste  nuptials,  warm 
as  they  are  chaste,  must  be  celebrated  afier  our  human 


88  avilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

fashion,  not  spiritually  and  no  more,  but  with  genial  em- 
braces, beneath  the  moon  and  stars,  else  how,  pray,  could 
she  ever  be — mother  earth  ?  Unfruitful  communion  else, 
— and  the  fairy-land  of  poetry  would  soon  be  depopulated. 

But  observe — that  if  true  poets  are  sometimes  rather  too 
cold  and  frigid  in  their  tautological  addresses  to  Nymph 
Nature,  those  wooers  of  hers  who  are  no  poets  at  all, 
albeit  they  lisp  to  her  in  numbers,  carry  their  rigmaroling 
beyond  all  bounds  of  her  patience,  and  assail  her  with 
sonnets  as  cold  as  icicles.  Never  was  there  a  time  when 
poetasters  were  more  frigid  in  their  lays  than  at  present; 
never  was  there  a  greater  show  of  lantastic  frost-frost; 
instead  of  a  living  Flora,  you  are  put  off  with  a  Ilortus 
Siccus.  And  therefore  it  was,  that  in  the  first  sentence  of 
this  article  we  said  that  descriptive  poetry  might  be  the 
dullest — and  we  now  add — the  driest  and  deadest  thing  in 
the  united  kingdom  of  Art  and  Nature — or  the  most 
delightful — just  as  the  true  poet  is  wedded  to  Nature,  or 
the  true  proser  keeps  dallying  with  her,  till  he  with  a  flea 
in  his  ear  is  ordered  out  of  her  presence,  and  kicked  by 
Cupid  and  Hymen  into  the  debatable  land  between  Imagi- 
nation and  Reality,  where  luckless  wights  are,  like  fish 
without  fins,  or  iowls  without  wings,  unable  either  to 
swim  or  fly,  and  yet  too  conceited  to  use  their  feet  like 
either  walking,  creeping,  or  crawling  creatures.  Never 
— never  was  there  such  a  multitude  of  pretenders  elbow- 
ing themselves  into  notice  among  the  inspired;  and  one 
and  all  of  them  it  is  our  intention  to  take — monthly 
during  the  next  ten  years — by  the  nape  of  the  neck — and 
after  exhibiting  them  in  writhing  contortions  for  a  kw 
minutes,  to  duck  them — for  evermore — into  the  Pool  of 
Oblivion. 

But  tremble  not — gentle  reader — whoever  you  be — at 
such  denunciation  of  our  wrath;  for  sure  we  are  that  no 
friends  of  Maga  can  ever  be  brought  under  that  ban. 
Perhaps  we  may  relent  and  spare  even  the  dunces;  for 
our  wrath  is  like  that  of  a  summer-wave,  rising  and  falling 
with  a  beautiful  burst  and  break  of  foam,  that  frightens 
not  the  seamew,  nor  even  the  child  sporting  on  the  shore. 
And  thou — thou  art  a  poet — whatever  be  the  order  to 
which  thou  mayest  belong — and  tlicre  are  many  orders. 


DESCRIPTIVE  POETRY.  89 

believe  us,  among  the  true  sons  of  song.  Mediocrity 
indeed!  Wlicre  may  that  line  be  drawn?  How  many 
ranks — degrees  of  glory — between  William  Shakspcare 
and  Allan  Ramsay  !  Between  Allan  Ramsay  and  the 
humblest  shepherd  that  ever  tuned  the  rural  pipe  to  love 
on  Scotia's  pastoral  hills !  Nature  is  not  such  a  niggard 
to  her  children — but  scatters  her  blessed  boons  wide  over 
life.  Each  nook  has  its  own  native  flower — each  grove 
its  own  songster — and  methinks  the  daisy,  "  wee,  modest, 
crimson-tippit  flower,"  is  little  less  lovely  than  the  impe- 
rial rose;  to  our  hearing,  when  the  nightingale  is  mute, 
most  sweetly  doth  the  linnet  sing; 

"  One  touch  of  Nature  wakes  the  whole  world  of  kin." 

Surely  touches  of  Nature  arc  not  so  rare  as  to  be  thought 
miraculous;  her  harp  gives-forth  music  to  many  a  hand; 
and  though  highest  genius  is  the  endowment  but  of  a  i'ew, 
yet  genius — that  is,  geniality — dwells  in  unnumbered 
bosoms,  and  its  breathings  are  heard  wide  over  all  the 
world  on  a  thousand  airs.  Its  voice  is  always  recognised 
at  last,  let  it  whisper  as  humbly — as  lowly  as  it  may  ; 
and  the  brow  that  misses  the  laurel,  or  merits  it  not,  may 
be  encircled  with  the  holly  or  the  broom,  emblems  both, 
in  their  greenness,  of  immortality.  'Tis  not  much  of  the 
divine  spirit,  after  all,  that  is  needed  to  give  a  name  its 
magic.  One  song — one  verse  of  a  song — has  consecrated 
a  peasant's  name,  who  cared  not  for  fame  the  phantom  ; 
and  unborn  ages  have  wept  over  the  pathos  of  some  tune 
which  flowed  almost  unconsciously  from  the  shepherd's 
heart,  at  the  "  VVaukcn  of  the  fauld,"  or  when  waiting  b} 
moonlight  at  the  Trysting  Thorn.  Now,  much  of  the 
poetical  literature  of  every  people  is  of  this  character. 
Is  not  Scotland  full  of  it— and  all  Scottish  hearts?  Not 
the  work  of  intellect,  surely — but  the  finer  breath  of  the 
spirit,  passion-roused  and  fancy-fired  by  the  hopes,  joys, 
and  fears  of  this  mortal  life! 

Surely  this  must  be  the  spirit  in  which  all  poetry — high 
or  low,  humble  or  ambitious — ought  to  be  read;  for  only 
in  such  a  spirit  can  its  spirit  be  fully,  fixirly,  and  freely 
felt ;   and   in   any  other   mood,  inspiration   itself  will    be 

8'^- 


90  Wilson's  miscella>'^eous  avritings. 

wasted  and  thrown  away  on  oven  the  most  gifted  mind. 
True,  that  in  states  of  society  exceedingly  cuhivated  anil 
refined — that  is  to  say,  artificial — \\  lien  the  most  exquisite 
and  consummate  skill  of  execution  is  necessarily  aimed  at, 
and  therefore  expected,  nothing  short  of  the  most  faultless 
perfection  of  style  will  secure  lo  any  poet  the  highest 
honours  of  his  art — and  at  such  a  period  did  Horace  deli- 
ver his  celebrated  anathema  against  mediocre  bards.  But 
poetry  in  the  modern  world  has  rarely  been  so  tram- 
melled; and  genius  and  feeling  have  been  allowed  their 
triumphs,  in  spile  of  the  accompanying  defects,  deficien- 
cies, and  faults  in  taste.  It  is  far  better  so ;  and  indeed 
the  cause  of  this  lies  deep  in  human  nature,  which  seems 
to  have  had  depths  opened  up  in  it  altogether  unknown  in 
the  world  of  old.  The  very  perfection  of  the  Greek 
drama  proves  its  inferiority  to  that  of  Shakspeare.  His 
materials  are  not  in  nature  susceptible  of  being  moulded 
into  such  shapes  and  forms  as  were  required  on  the  Greek 
stage.  And  as  of  Shakspeare,  so  in  due  degree,  in  the 
cases  of  all  true  poets,  down  to  those  of  even  the  lowest 
order — all  of  them,  without  exception,  have  excelled,  not 
so  much  by  the  power  of  art  as  of  nature,  in  whose  free 
spirit  they  had  tlieir  being  as  poets.  An  indefinable  feel- 
ing is  excited  by  their  productions — imjjcrfcct,  mediocre 
in  execution,  nay,  even  in  design,  as  many  of  them  are — 
a  feeling  which  rises  but  beneath  the  breath  of  genius, 
and  a  certain  proof,  therefore,  of  its  existence.  So  noble 
— so  sacred  an  achievement  is  it  to  give  delight  to  the 
spirit  through  its  finer  emotions  !  So  that  glory  is  his 
who  so  moves  uy,  and  gratitude;  though  ho  has  done  no 
more  than  prcscuit  to  us  a  few  new  images,  round  wliicli, 
by  the  mysterious  constitution  of  our  souls,  wc  can  gather 
some  dearly-cherished  thoughts  and  feelings,  and,  when 
they  are  so  gathered,  know  that  they  are  for  ever  em- 
balmed, as  it  were,  in  words  which  it  was  genius  for  the 
first  time  to  utter,  and  which,  but  for  genius,  could  never 
have  been  for  our  delight  or  our  consolation. 

Thus  explained,  mediocrity  in  poetry  appears  at  once 
to  be  a  height  to  which,  though  many  aspire,  but  icw 
attain — and  which  can  be  reached  only  by  genius.  There 
are   at   present    in   this  island,  hundreds,   ay,   thousands, 


DESCRIl'TIVE  POETRY.  91 

nay,  millions,  of  writers  in  verse,  who  would  disdain  lo 
accept  the  palm  of  mediocrity,  who  turn  up  their  noses  at 
senior  and  junior  Ops,  and  dream  of  nothing  less  than 
being   high    Wranglers.     Yet,  among  the   ci   -ttoXXoi   will 
they  remain  while  they  consume  crops.     It  is  not  in  them 
lo  beautify — or  lo  embalm  beauty;  and  therefore,  as  Cow- 
ley says,  they  "  like  beasts  or  common  people  die;"  and 
their  Christian  and  sirnames  get  confused  among  a  vast 
multitude  of  the  same  sound,  engraved  on  tombstones  or 
printed  in  directories.     The  moment  a  man  mounts  up  on 
the  scale  of  mediocrity,  he  is  safe  from  oblivion,  and  may 
snap  his  fingers  at  time.    A  mediocre  poet  may  be  shortly 
defined — a  man  of  a  million.     In  poetry,  about  a  devil's 
dozen  of  celestial   spirits  stand  in  the  first  order  of  the 
seraphim  or  cherubim.     The  second  and  third  orders  con- 
lain   about   fifty    lesser   angels — but   all   of  them   radiant 
creatures,  with  wings.     All   "  the  rest,"  who  have  names 
on  earth  and   in  heaven,  in  number  about  a  hundred,  arc 
marshalled  in  the  mediocre  phalanx — and  constitute  the 
main  body  of  the  immortals;  and  a  pretty  fellow  for  im- 
pudence you  would  be,  to  refuse  the  gold  guinea  put  into 
the  palm  of  your  hand  by  Apollo  enlisting  you  as  a  young 
recruit    into  the   battalion.     VVe   verily    believe   that   the 
numbers  of  the  grenadier  company — though  there  be  no 
positive  law  against  it — will  never  go  beyond  the  devil's 
dozen — .so  high  is  the  standard  to  which  the  men  must 
come  up,  on  their  stocking-soles  and  with  shaved  heads. 
The  Light-bobs — now  a  smart  company  of  fifty — may, 
perhaps,  on  some  future  day,  amount  lo  threescore — and 
the  battalion,  it  is  probable,  may  yet  reach  the  number  of 
those  who  died  at  Thermopylae     But  were  Apollo  lo  con- 
stitute us  his  recruiting  sergeant,  and  allow  us  ten  gallons 
of  Glenlivet  on  each  jwet's  head,  we  are  free  to  confess 
that  the  mountain-dew  would   not  lie  heavy  on  the  land, 
for  we  do  not  know  above  a  couple  of  mediocre  young 
gentlemen  to  whom  we'  should  offer  the  king's  bounty — 
and  one  of  them,  we  believe,  would  go  ofl^  in  a  huff,  and 
the  other  hesitate  lo  enlist   into   the   service,  for  fear  of 
angering  his  mother. 

We  therefore  love  all  poets,  and  all  poetry ;  and  the 
rank  of  the  man  havinsr  once  been  ascertained — which  is 


92  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

done  by  the  human  race  holding  up  its  hand — we  never 
henceforth  dream  of  making  odious  comparisons — but 
enough  for  us  to  know  from  his  uniform — green  and  gold 
— from  the  stars  on  his  breast,  and  the  sun  on  his  standard 
— that  such  or  such  a  hero  belongs  to  the  immortals.  But 
when  the  whole  regiment  deploys  into  line,  on  some  grand 
review  day — hundreds  of  thousands  of  spectators  glorying 
in  the  sublime  spectacle — Heavens  !  what  a  rabble  of 
camp-followers  !  Of  gillies  pretending  to  be  real  soldiers 
— in  green  corduroys — with  wooden  muskets — and  paper- 
caps — treading  down  the  heels  of  each  other's  shoes — or 
marking  time,  like  so  many  "  hens  on  a  het  girdle,"  to  a 
band  of  instrumental  music,  consisting  of  three  penny 
trumpets,  and  six  sonorous  small-teeth  combs,  playing 
"  Hey  tutie  tatic^''  in  a  style  far  superior  to  that  in  which 
it  ever  could  have  been  skirled  up  to  the 

Scots  Vv'lia  had  wi'  Wallace  blod, 
Scots  wham  Bruce  had  aften  led — 

at  the  battle  of  Bannockburn. 

Such  being  the  nature  of  true  poets  and  true  poetry, 
and  such  the  light  in  which  they  are  regarded  by  the  race 
whom  they  elevate — what,  pray,  it  may  be  asked,  did 
Mr.  Jeffrey  mean,  t'other  day,  by  saying  that  all  the  poets 
of  this  age  are  forgotten?  There  are  ^c\s  people  whom 
we  love  and  admiie  more  than  Mr.  Jeffrey — though  we 
believe  he  does  not  know  it ;  but  why  will  he,  in  his 
elegant  and  graceful  way,  speak  such  nonsense?  Scott, 
Byron,  Southey,  Coleridge,  Wordsworth,  Moore,  are,  he 
assures  us,  already  all  forgotten — or  nearly  so — fading 
av/ay — mere  specks  on  the  distant  horizon  of  men's 
clouded  memories!  Why,  our  dear  sir,  you  might  just 
us  well  aflirm  that  the  stars  are  forgotten,  because  thou- 
sands of  coachfuls  of  people,  coming  and  going  to  and 
from  evening  parties,  are  not  at  the  time  aware  that  the 
heavens  are  full  of  them — that  shepherds  are  watching 
by  them  on  the  hills — and  sailors  sailing  by  them  on  the 
seas — and  astronomers  coimting  them  in  observatories — 
and  occasionally  discovering  one  that  had  been  invisible 
to  the  mole-eyes  of  men  since  the  creation. 

Yet  in  all  the  nonsense  Mr.  Jeffrey  ever  spoke,  or  may 


DESCRIPTIVE  rOETRY.  93 

speak,  you  always  may  find  some  grains  of  sense — for 
who  doubts  his  sagacity  and  his  genius'?  True  it  is  that 
much  admiration  do  gaping  people  ejaculate  for  things 
that  are  admirable,  without  knowing  why  or  wherefore 
they  admire;  their  jaws  get  wearied — they  begin  to  yawn 
— they  doze — they  sleep — they  snore,  and  the  stars,  which 
arc  the  poetry  of  heaven,  and  poetry,  which  is  the  flower- 
age  as  well  as  the  herbage  of  earth — are  of  course  forgot- 
ten by  their  loud-nosed  worshippers.  But  "  millions  of 
spiritual  creatures"  are  awake  amid  that  snore ;  they 
forget  not  the  stars  of  heaven  nor  the  poets  of  earth. 
They  hear  still  the  music  of  the  celestial  spheres  and  the 
terrestrial  singers.  In  their  memories  all  the  hymns  have 
an  abiding  place — while  they  live,  think  not 

"  That  heaven  can  want  spectators — God  want  praise  !" 

The  distinction  at  which  we  have  now  pointed,  seems 
to  us  to  be  one  which  deserves  to  be  attended  to  by  those 
who  might  be  disposed  to  bow  to  the  authority  of  the  most 
accomplished  ex-edifor  of  the  Edinburgh  Review,  and, 
without  thought,  to  adopt  the  shallow  dictum  which  lately 
dropped  from  his  ingenious  pen.  Your  great  and  good 
living  poets  are  indeed  forgotten  by  thousands  who  are 
incapable  of  remembering  what  they  never  felt  nor  un- 
derstood,— the  creations  of  inspired  genius.  All  such  de- 
spicable idolaters  drop  away  from  their  own  superstitions  ; 
and  soon  cease  to  worship  at  shrines  built  only  for  those 
who  belong  to  the  true  religion.  But  the  true  religion 
stands  fast — such  secession  strengthens  the  established 
faith — nor  will  the  poets  we  have  named — and  others 
little  less  illustrious — ever  be  forgotten,  till  Lethe  bursts 
its  banks  and  overflows  the  globe. 

Not  one  of  our  great  or  good  living  poets  is  forgotten 
at  this  hour  by  Mr.  JeftVey  himself — nor  any  of  those 
critiques  of  his  own  either,  in  which  he  did  noble  justice 
to  some  of  them,  and  ignoble  injustice  to  others,  according 
to  the  transient  or  permanent  moods  by  which  his  taste, 
feeling,  and  judgment  were  swayed.  Nor  are  his  critiques 
themselves  likely  to  be  forgotten — soon  or  ever;  for  many 
of  them  belong,  we  verily  believe,  to  our  philosophical 


94  ^vILSo^''s  miscellaneous  writings. 

literature.  But  they  hold  the  tenure  of  their  existence 
by  the  existence  of  the  poetry  which  they  sought  to  illus- 
trate or  obscure;  from  the  "  golden  urns  of  those  Poets" 
did  he  "  draw  light" — the  light  in  which  he  is  himself 
conspicuous — and  were  it  extinguished,  his  literary  life 
would  be  a  blank.  But  if  the  name  of  Francis  Jeffrey 
will  not  be  forgotten,  till  those  of  Scott,  Crabbe,  and 
Wordsworth,  and  Byron  and  the  rest  are  dark  or  dead, 
he  may  be  assured  of  immortality  ;  nor,  without  ingratitude, 
can  he  assert  present,  or  predict  future  oblivious  doom 
to  luminaries,  who,  whatever  be  its  own  native  lustre, 
have  certainly  showered  over  his  genius  no  small  portion 
of  the  brilliance  with  which  it  now  burns. 

Nothing  that  blockheads  are  so  proud  of  as  to  retail 
the  paradoxes  of  some  distinguished  man.  T'other  even- 
ing we  allowed  one  to  bother  a  company  for  some  minutes 
with  a  preachment  of  the  above;  and  having  got  him 
fairly  to  entangle  himself  in  the  net,  out  of  which  Mr. 
Jeffrey  would  have  nibbled  himself  in  a  moment,  and 
made  his  escape  with  all  the  agility  of  a  squirrel,  we 
wrapt  it  so  round  his  body  from  snout  to  tail,  that  he 
literally  seemed  one  bunch  of  small  twine,  and  had  not 
left  in  him  so  much  as  the  squeak  of  a  mouse.  On  being 
let  out  of  the  toils,  he  took  his  toddy  in  silence  during  the 
rest  of  the  evening,  and  prated  no  more  about  the  oblivion 
of  Byron. 

Two  living  poets,  however,  it  seems  there  are,  who, 
according  to  Mr.  Jeffrey,  are  never  to  be  dead  ones — two 
who  are  unforgetable,  and  who  owe  their  immortality — 
to  what  think  ye  ? — their  elegance  ?  That  "  Gracilis 
Puer,^''  Samuel  Rogers,  is  one  of  the  dual  number.  His 
perfect  beauties  will  never  be  brought  to  decay  in  the  eyes 
of  an  enamoured  world.  lie  is  so  polished,  that  time  can 
never  take  the  shine  out  of  him — so  classically  correct 
are  his  charms,  that  to  the  end  of  time  tiiey  will  be  among 
the  principal  Pleasures  of  Memory.  Jacqueline,  in  her  im- 
mortal loveliness,  seeming  Juno,  Minerva,  and  Venus  all 
in  one,  will  shed  in  vain  "  tears  such  as  angels  weep" 
over  the  weeds  that  have  in  truth  "  no  business  there,"  on 
the  forgotten  grave  of  Childe  Harold  !  Very  like  a  whale. 
Thomas  Campbell  is  the  other  pet-poet — "  the  last  of  all 


DESCRIPnVE    POETRY.  95 

the  flock."  Ay — he,  we  allow,  is  a  star  that  will  know  no 
setting;  but  of  this  we  can  assure  the  whole  world,  not  ex- 
ckiding  Mr.  Jeffrey,  that  were  Mr.  Campbell's  soul  deified, 
and  a  star  in  the  sky,  and  told  by  Apollo,  who  placed  him 
in  the  blue  region,  that  Scott  and  Byron  were  both  buried 
somewhere  between  the  Devil  and  the  Deep  Sea,  he  the 
author  of  Lochiel's  Warning,  would  either  leap  from 
Heaven  in  disdain,  or  insist  on  their  being  instanter  one 
triple  constellation.  What  to  do  with  his  friend  Mr. 
Rogers,  it  might  not  be  easy  for  Mr.  Campbell  to  imagine 
or  propose  at  such  a  critical  juncture;  but  we  think  it 
probable  that  he  would  hint  to  Apollo,  on  the  appearance 
of  his  Lordship  and  the  Baronet,  that  the  Banker,  with  a 
(ew  other  pretty  poets,  might  be  permitted  to  scintillate 
away  to  all  eternity  as  their — tail. 


TREES. 

(Blaclvwood's  Edinburgh  Magazine,  1828.) 


Trees  are  indeed  the  glory,  the  beauty,  and  the  delight 
of  nature.  The  man  who  loves  not  trees — to  look  at  them 
— to  lie  under  them — to  climb  up  them,  (once  more  a 
schoolboy,)  —  would  make  no  bones  of  murdering  Mrs. 
Jeffs.  In  what  one  imaginable  attribute,  that  it  ought  to 
possess,  is  a  tree,  pray,  deficient'.'  Light,  shade,  shelter, 
coolness,  freshness,  music,  all  the  colours  of  the  rainbow, 
dew  and  dreams  dropping  through  their  umbrageous  twi- 
light at  eve  or  morn, — dropping  direct, — soft,  sweet,  sooth- 
ing, and  restorative,  from  heaven.  Without  trees,  how,  in 
the  name  of  wonder,  could  we  have  had  houses,  ships, 
bridges,  easy-chairs,  or  coffins,  or  almost  any  single  one 
of  the  necessaries,  conveniences,  or  comforts  of  life  ? 
Without  trees,  one  man  might  have  been  born  with  a  silver 
spoon  in  his  mouth,  but  not  another  with  a  wooden  ladle. 

Tree  by  itself  tree,  "such  tents  the  patriarchs  loved," — 
Ipse  nemus, — "  the  brotherhood  of  trees," — the  grove,  the 
coppice,  the  wood,  the  forest, — dearly,  and  after  a  different 
fashion,  do  we  love  you  all  ! — And  love  you  all  we  shall, 
while  our  dim  eyes  can  catch  the  glimmer,  our  dull  ears 
the  murmur,  of  the  leaves, — or  our  imagination  hear  at 
midnight,  the  far-off  swing  of  old  branches  groaning  in 
the  tempest.  Oh !  is  not  merry  also  sylvan  England  l 
And  has  not  Scotland,  too,  her  old  pine  forests,  blackening 
up  her  highland  mountains?  Are  not  many  of  her  rivered 
valleys  not  unadorned  with  woods, — her  braes  beautiful 
with  their  birken  shaws  ? — And  does  not  stately  ash  or 
sycamore  tower  above  the  kirk-spire,  in  many  a  quiet  glen, 
overshadowing  the  humble  house  of  God,  "  the  dial-stone 


TRKES.  97 

aged  and  green,"  and  all  the  deep-sunk,  sinking,  or  upright 
array  of  grave-stones,  beneath  which 

"The  rude  forefathers  of  the  hamlet  sleep  ?" 

We  have  the  highest  respect  for  the  ghost  of  Dr.  John- 
son ;  yet  were  we  to  meet  it  by  moonlight,  how  should  we 
make  it  hang  its  head  on  the  subject  of  Scottish  trees ! 
Look  there,  you  old,  blind,  blundering  blockhead  !  That 
pine  forest  is  twenty  miles  square !  Many  million  trees, 
there,  have  at  least  five  hundred  arms  each,  six  times  as 
thick  as  ever  your  body  was,  sir,  when  you  were  at  your 
very  fattest  in  Bolt  Court.  As  for  their  trunks — some 
straight  as  cathedral  pillars — some  flung  all  awry  in  their 
strength  across  cataracts — some  without  a  twig  till  your 
eye  meets  the  hawk's  nest  diminished  to  a  black-bird's, 
and  some  overspread,  from  within  a  man's  height  of  the 
mossy  sward,  with  fantastic  branches,  cone-covered,  and 
green  as  emerald — what  say  you,  you  great,  big,  lumber- 
ing, unwieldy  ghost  you,  to  trunks  like  these?  And  are 
not  the  forests  of  Scotland  the  most  forgiving  that  ever 
were  self-sown,  to  suffer  you  to  flit  to  and  fro,  haunting 
unharmed  their  ancient  umbrage?  Yet — Doctor — you 
were  a  fine  old  Tory  every  inch  of  you,  for  all  that,  my 
boy — so  come  glimmering  away  with  you  into  the  gloom 
after  us — don't  stumble  over  the  roots — we  smell  a  still  at 
work — and  neither  you  nor  I — shadow  nor  substance  (but, 
prithee,  why  so  wan,  good  Doctor  ?  Prithee,  why  so  wan  ?) 
can  be  much  the  worse,  eh,  of  a  caulker  of  Glenlivat  ? 

Every  man  of  landed  property,  that  lies  fairly  out  of 
arm's-length  of  a  town,  whether  free  or  copyhold,  be  its 
rental  above  or  below  forty  shillings  a-year,  should  be  a 
planter.  Even  an  old  bachelor,  who  has  no  right  to  be- 
come the  father  of  a  child,  is  not  only  free,  but  in  duty 
bound  to  plant  a  tree.  Unless  his  organ  of  philoprogeni- 
tiveness  be  small  indeed,  as  he  looks  at  the  young,  lender 
plants  in  his  own  nursery-garden,  his  heart  will  yearn  to- 
wards them  with  all  the  lonsiing  and  instinctive  fondness 
of  a  father.  As  he  beholds  them  putting  forth  the  tender 
buds  of  hope,  he  will  be  careful  to  preserve  them  from  all 
blight, — he  will  "  teach  the  young  idea  how  to  shoot," — 

VOL.  I.  9 


98  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

and,  according  to  their  different  natures,  he  will  send  them 
to  different  places  to  complete  their  education,  according 
as  they  are  ultimately  intended  for  the  church,  the  bar,  or 
the  navy.  The  old  gentleman  will  be  surprised  to  see 
how  soon  his  young  plants  have  grown  as  tall  as  himself, 
even  though  he  should  be  an  extraordinary  member  of  the 
Six  Feet  Club.  An  oak  sapling,  of  some  five  or  six  springs, 
shall  measure  with  him  on  his  stocking-soles, — and  a  larch, 
considerably  younger,  laugh  to  shake  its  pink  cones  far 
over  his  wig.  But  they  are  all  dutiful  children, — never  go 
stravaiging  from  home  after  youthful  follies, — and  standing 
together  in  beautiful  bands,  and  in  majestic  masses,  they 
will  not  suffer  the  noonday  sun  to  smite  their  father's  head, 
nor  the  winds  of  lieaven  to  "  visit  his  face  too  roughly." 

People  are  sometimes  prevented  from  planting  trees  by 
the  slowness  of  their  growth.  What  a  mistake  that  is  ! 
People  might  just  as  well  be  prevented  from  being  wed, 
because  a  man-child  takes  one-and-twenty  years  to  get  out 
of  his  minority,  and  a  woman-child,  except  in  hot  climates, 
is  rarely  marriageable  before  fifteen.  Not  the  least  fear 
in  the  world,  that  Tommy  and  Thomasine  and  the  tree 
will  grow  up  fast  enough — wither  at  the  top — and  die  !  It 
is  a  strange  fear  to  feel — a  strange  complaint  to  utter — 
that  any  one  thing  in  this  world,  animate  or  inanimate,  is 
of  too  slow  growth ;  for  the  nearer  to  its  perfection,  the 
nearer  to  its  decay. 

No  man,  who  enjoys  good  health,  at  fifty,  or  even  sixty, 
would  hesitate,  if  much  in  love,  to  take  a  wife,  on  the 
ground  that  he  could  have  no  hope  or  chance  of  seeing 
his  numerous  children  all  grown  up  into  hobbledehoys  and 
Priscilla  Tomboys.  Get  your  children  first,  and  let  them 
grow  at  their  own  leisure  afterwards.  In  like  manner,  let 
no  man,  bachelor  or  Benedict,  be  his  age  beyond  the  limit 
of  conversational  confession,  fear  to  lay  out  a  nursery- 
garden, — to  fill  it  with  young  seedlings, — and  thencefor- 
ward, to  keep  planting  away,  up  hill  and  down  brae,  all  the 
rest  of  his  life. 

Besides,  in  every  stage,  how  interesting,  both  a  wood 
and  sap  tree,  and  a  ffesh  and  blood  child  !  Look  at  pretty, 
ten-year-old,  rosy -cheeked,  golden-haired  Mary,  gazing, 
with  all  the  blue  brightness  of  her  eyes,  at  that  large  dew- 


TREES.  99 

drop,  which  the  sun  has  let  escape  unmelted  even  on  into 
the  meridian  hours,  on  the  topmost  pink-bud,  within  which 
the  teeming  leaf  struggles  to  expand  into  beauty, — the 
topmost  pink-bud  of  that  little  lime-tree,  but  three  winters 
old,  and  half  a  spring  ! — Hark  !  that  is  Harry,  at  home  on 
a  holiday,  rustling  like  a  roe  in  the  coppicewood,  in  search 
of  the  nest  of  the  blackbird  or  mavis; — yet  ten  years  ago 
that  rocky  hill-side  was  unplanted,  and  "  that  bold  boy,  so 
bright  and  beautiful,"  unborn.  Who,  then, — be  his  age 
what  it  may, — ^would  either  linger,  "  with  fond,  reluctant, 
amorous  delay,"  to  take  unto  himself  a  wife,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  having  children,  or  to  enclose  a  waste  for  the 
purpose  of  having  trees '.' 

At  what  time  of  life  a  human  being, — man  or  woman, 
— looks  best,  it  might  be  hard  to  say.  A  virgin  of  eighteen, 
straight  and  tall,  bright,  blooming,  and  balmy,  seems,  to 
our  old  eyes,  a  very  beautiful  and  delightful  sight.  In- 
wardly we  bless  hei",  and  pray  that  she  may  be  as  happy 
as  she  is  innocent.  So,  too,  is  an  oak  tree,  about  the  same 
age,  standing  by  itself,  without  a  twig  on  its  straight, 
smooth,  round,  glossy,  silver  stem,  for  some  few  feet  from 
the  ground,  and  then  branching  out  into  a  stately  flutter  of 
dark  green  leaves  ;  the  shape  being  indistinct  in  its  regular 
but  not  formal  over-fallings,  and  over-foldings,  and  over- 
hangings,  of  light  and  shade.  Such  an  oak  tree  is  indeed 
truly  beautiful,  with  all  its  tenderness,  gracefulness,  and 
delicacy, — ay,  a  delicacy  almost  seeming  to  be  fragile, — 
as  if  the  cushat,  whirring  from  its  concealment,  would 
crush  the  new  spring-shoots,  sensitive  almost  as  the  gos- 
samer, with  which  every  twig  is  intertwined.  Leaning  on 
our  staff,  we  bless  it,  and  call  it  even  by  that  very  virgin's 
name  ;  and  ever  thenceforth  behold  Louisa  lying  in  its 
shade. — Gentle  reader,  what  it  is  to  be  an  old,  dreamy, 
visionary,  prosing  poet ! 

Good  God  !  let  any  one  who  accuses  trees  of  laz'  icss  in 
growing  only  keep  out  of  sight  of  them  for  a  Cew  years  ; 
and  then,  returning  home  to  them  under  cloud  of  night,  all 
at  once  open  his  eyes,  of  a  fine,  sunny,  summer  morning, 
and  ask  them  how  they  have  been  since  he  and  they  mu- 
tually murmured  farewell !  He  will  not  recognise  the  face, 
or  the  figure  of  a  single  tree.     That  sycamore,  whose  top- 


100  wilson'8  miscellaneous  writings. 

shoot  a  cow,  you  know,  browsed  off,  to  the  breaking  of 
your  heart,  some  four  or  five  years  ago,  is  now  as  high  as 
the  "  riggin"  of  the  cottage,  and  is  murmuring  with  bees 
among  its  blossoms  quite  like  an  old  tree.  What  preco- 
city !  That  Wych  elm,  hidebound  as  it  seemed  of  yore, 
and  with  only  one  arm  that  it  could  hardly  lift  from  its 
side,  is  now  a  Briareus.  Is  that  the  larch  you  used  to 
hop  over? — now  almost  fit  to  be  a  mast  of  one  of  the  fairy 
fleet  on  Windermere  ! — you  thought  you  would  never  have 
forgotten  the  triangle  of  the  three  birches, — but  you  stare 
at  them  now  as  if  they  had  dropped  from  the  clouds  ! — 
and  since  you  think  that  beech — that  round  hill  of  leaves 
— is  not  the  same  shrub  you  left  sticking  in  the  gravel, 
why  call  the  old  gardener  hither,  and  swear  him  to  its 
identity  on  the  Bible. 

Before  this  confounded  gout  attacked  our  toe,  we  were 
great  pedestrians,  and  used  to  stalk  about  all  over  the 
banks  and  braes  from  sunrising  to  sunsetting,  through  all 
seasons  of  the  year.  Few  sights  would  please  us  more 
than  that  of  a  new  mansion-house,  or  villa,  or  cottage 
ornee,  rising  up  in  some  sheltered,  but  open-fronted  nook, 
commanding  a  view  of  a  few  bends  of  a  stream  or  river 
winding  along  old  lea,  or  rich  holm  ploughed  fields,— 
sloping  uplands,  with  here  and  there  a  farm-house  and 
trees, — and  in  the  distance  hill-tops  quite  clear,  and  cutting 
the  sky,  wreathed  with  mists,  or  for  a  time  hidden  in 
clouds.  It  set  the  imagination  and  the  heart  at  work  to- 
gether, to  look  at  the  young  hedgerows  and  plantations, 
belts,  clumps,  and  single  trees,  hurdled  in  from  the  nib- 
bling sheep.  Ay,  some  younger  brother,  who,  twenty,  or 
thirty,  or  forty  years  ago,  went  abroad  to  the  East,  or  the 
West,  to  push  his  fortune,  has  returned  to  the  neighbour- 
hood of  his  native  vale  at  last,  to  live  and  to  die  among 
the  braes,  where  once,  among  the  yellow  broom,  the 
schoolboy  sported  gladsome  as  any  bird.  Busy  has  he 
been  in  adorning, — perhaps  the  man  who  fixes  his  faith  on 
Price  on  the  Picturesque,  would  say  in  disfiguring, — the 
inlnnd  haven  where  he  has  dropt  anchor,  and  will  continue 
to  ride  till  the  vessel  of  life  parts  from  her  moorings,  and 
drifts  away  on  the  shoreless  sea  of  eternity.  For  our  own 
parts,  we  are  not  easily  offended  by  any  conformation 


TREES.  101 

into  which  trees  can  be  thrown — the  bad  taste  of  another 
m'lst  not  be  suffered  to  throw  us  into  a  bad  temper — and 
as  long  as  the  trees  are  green  in  their  season,  and  in  their 
season,  purple,  and  orange,  and  yellow,  and  refrain  from 
murdering  each  other,  to  our  eye  they  are  pleasant  to  look 
upon, — to  our  ear  it  is  music,  indeed,  to  hear  them  all 
a-murmur  along  with  the  murmuring  winds.  Hundreds — 
thousands  of  such  dwellings  have,  in  our  time,  arisen  all 
over  the  face  of  Scotland ;  and  there  is  room  enough,  we 
devoutly  trust,  and  verily  believe,  for  hundreds  and  thou- 
sands more.  Of  a  people's  prosperity  what  pleasanter 
proof!  And,  therefore,  may  all  the  well-fenced  woods  make 
more  and  more  wonderful  shoots  every  year.  Beneath 
and  among  their  shelter,  may  not  a  single  slate  be  blown 
from  the  blue  roof,  peering  through  the  trees,  on  the  eyes 
of  distant  traveller,  as  he  wheels  along  on  the  top  of  his 
most  gracious  majesty's  mail-coach; — may  the  dryads 
soon  wipe  away  their  tears  for  the  death  of  the  children 
that  must,  in  thinnings,  be  "  wede  away  ;" — and  may  the 
rookeries  and  heronries  of  Scotland  increase  in  number 
for  the  long  space  of  ten  thousand  revolving  years  ! 

Not  that  we  hold  it  to  be  a  matter  of  pure  indifference, 
how  people  plant  trees.  We  have  an  eye  for  the  pictu- 
resque, the  sublime,  and  the  beautiful,  and  cannot  open  it, 
without  seeing  at  once  the  very  spirit  of  the  scene.  O 
ye !  who  have  had  the  happiness  to  be  born  among  the 
murmers  of  hereditary  trees,  can  ye  be  blind  to  the  system 
pursued  by  that  planter — nature  ?  Nature  plants  often  on 
a  great  scale,  darkening,  far  as  the  telescope  can  command 
the  umbrage,  sides  of  mountains  that  are  heard  roaring 
still  with  hundreds  of  hidden  cataracts.  And  nature  often 
plants  on  a  small  scale,  dropping  down  the  stately  birk  so 
beautiful,  among  the  sprinkled  hazels,  by  the  side  of  the 
little  waterfall  of  the  wimpling  burnie,  that  stands  dishevel- 
ling there  her  tresses  to  the  dew-wind,  like  a  queen's 
daughter,  who  hath  just  issued  from  the  pool  of  pearls, 
and  shines  aloft  and  aloof  from  her  attendant  maidens. 
But  man  is  so  proud  of  his  own  works,  that  he  ceases  to 
regard  those  of  nature.  Why  keep  poring  on  that  book  of 
plates,  purchased  at  less  than  half  price  at  a  sale,  when 
nature  flutters  before  your  eyes  her  own  folio,  which  all 

9* 


TmTX'T?T?<3TTT  O'P  C^LTFOT^-TTIA 


102  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

who  run  may  read, — although  to  study  it  as  it  ought  to  be 
studied,  you  must  certainly  sit  down  on  mossy  stump, 
ledge  of  an  old  bridge,  stone  wall,  stream  bank,  or  broomy 
brae,  and  gaze,  and  gaze,  till  woods  and  sky  become  like 
your  very  self,  and  your  very  self  like  Ihem,  at  once  in- 
corporated together  and  spiritualized.  After  a  few  years' 
such  lessons — you  may  become  a  planter — and  under  your 
hands  not  only  shall  the  desert  blossom  like  the  rose,  but 
murmur  like  the  palm,  and  if  "  southward  through  Eden 
goes  a  river  large,"  and  your  name  be  Adam,  what  a 
sceptic  not  to  believe  yourself  the  first  of  men,  your 
wife  the  fairest  of  her  daughters  Eve,  and  your  policy 
Paradise ! 

Unless  you  look  and  listen,  and  lay  to  heart  what  you 
see  and  hear,  you  will  make  a  pretty  pickle  of  planting. 
Huge  wagons  come  hulking  along  the  cross-roads  piled  up 
with  all  sorts  of  young  trees  swathed  in  mats,  and  you  and 
your  Grieve  and  his  men  cannot  rest  till  they  are  all  stuck 
into  the  soil — higgledy,  piggledy,  promisky,  and  on  the 
principle  of  liberty  and  equality — each  plant  being  allowed 
the  same  want  of  elbow-room,  and  the  same  chance — no 
choice — of  dry  or  moisture.  Here  a  great  awkward  over- 
grown hobbledehoy  of  a  poplar,  who  keeps  perpetually 
turning  up  the  whites  of  his  leaves  at  every  breath  that 
blows,  stands  shivering  like  an  aspen  cheek  by  jowl  with 
a  squat,  sturdy,  short-necked,  bandy-legged  pech  of  a 
Scotch  fir,  as  dour  as  the  devil  in  a  stjuall,' though,  unlike 
that  gentleman,  unable  to  stand  hot  weather,  and  looking 
in  a  brown  study,  indeed  during  the  dog-days.  Here, 
again,  the  greenest  of  all  saughs,  brightening  with  the  love 
of  life,  in  a  small  marsh, — for  thesaugh  loves  wet  like  the 
whaup, — by  the  side  of  the  yellowest  of  all  larches,  pining 
and  dwindling  in  the  fear  of  death,  shooting  six  inches  on 
an  average  every  year,  but  which  is  the  top-shoot  no  man 
can  tell,  and  eaten  alive  by  insects.  There,  seven  as 
pretty  young  oaks  as  you  may  see  on  a  spring  or  sum- 
mer's morning  committing  fratricide  for  possession  of  that 
knoll  !  Now  that  yonder  ash  has,  after  a  sore  tussle,  got 
these  two  elms  down,  you  may  depend  upon  it  he  will  not 
let  them  up  again  in  a  hurry;  or  if  he  does,  why  that 
sycamore  will  settle  him  for  such  stupidity,   having  the 


TREES.  103 

advantage  of  the  ground,  and  being  his  superior  in  height, 
weight,  and  length,  and  at  least  his  equal  in  science. 
And  then  is  there  not  something  exceedingly  pretty  in  the 
variegation  of  such  patchwork  policy  ?  Pretty  as  any 
coverlet  to  any  old  woman's  bed  in  all  the  parish?  No 
great,  huge,  black,  sullen,  sulky  masses  of  shade — no 
broad  bright  bursts  of  sunshine,  enough  to  drive  a  man 
mad  with  sudden  mirth  or  melancholy,  as  he  wanders 
among  the  woods — but  every  tree  standing  by  itself,  with 
an  enormous  organ  of  individuality,  so  that  you  cannot 
help  trying  to  count  them,  yet  never  get  beyond  a  score, 
being  put  out  of  your  reckoning  by  an  unexpected  poplar 
standing  with  his  back  against  a  rock,  in  vain  combat  with 
a  sharp-nailed  silver  fir,  scratching  his  very  eyes  out — a 
beech  bathing  in  a  puddle  of  moss-wafer — or  something  in 
the  shape  of  an  ornamental  shrub,  struggling  in  the  many- 
fingered  grasp  of  the  strangulating  heather,  like  a  Cockney 
entangled  among  the  Scottish  thistles  of  Blackwood's  Ma- 
gazine. 

Then  what  a  pest  are  your  prigs  of  professional  planters! 
They  walk  with  such  an  air  about  your  rural  premises,  as 
if  you  had  not  a  single  eye  in  your  head,  and  did  not  know 
a  frowning  ash  from  a  weeping  birch,  a  hour-tree  from  u 
gooseberry  bush,  whins  from  broom,  or  rasps  from  rowans. 
If  there  be  a  barn  or  byre  on  the  estate,  they  begin  with 
planting  it  out  as  if  it  were  a  poors'  house,  or  an  infirmary, 
or  a  tanyard,  or  perhaps  pulling  it  down  ;  in  which  case, 
what  becomes  of  the  corn  and  the  cows  ? 

"  Of  a'  the  airls  the  wind  can  blavv, 
You  dearly  lo'c  the  west; 
For  there  the  bonny  lassie  lives, 
The  lass  that  you  lo'e  best." 

And  with  many  a  beautiful  simset  has  your  soul  sunk 
away  behind  the  gorgeous  weather-gleam,  into  her  fair 
and  far-off  bosom.  The  monster  plants  it  out,  too,  and 
be  hanged  to  him,  with  a  spindle-shanked  grove,  that  will 
continue  to  wear  a  truly  transplanted  and  haggard  appear- 
ance to  the  day  of  judgment. 

Having  thus,  day  after  day,  planted  out  all  "  old  familiar 
faces,"  nothing  will  satisfy  him  but  to  open  up  ;  and  down 
go  temples  and  towers  that  never  can  be  rebuilt — trees 
old  as  sin,  stately  as  Satan,  beautiful  as  virtue,  and  reve- 


104  Wilson's  miscellaneous  mritings. 

rend  as  religion.  The  river,  robbed  of  all  the  magnifi- 
cence with  which  imagination  blackened  and  whitened  it, 
as  it  moved  unseen  through  the  woods — unseen,  but  in 
one  bright  bend  here — one  sullen  stretch  there — one 
deadened  cataract,  steaming  and  gleaming  yonder  through 
its  oak-canopy,  now  rolls  on  disenchanted  through  the 
light  of  common  day  ;  and  you  may  see  ladies,  and  ladies' 
maids,  with  green  parasols,  hunting  butterflies  all  by 
themselves,  or  flirting  with  dragoon  officers,  and  under- 
graduates from  Oxford.  That  mile-long  elm  avenue — a 
cathedral  in  which  a  hundred  thousand  penitentials  might 
have  prayed — is  swept  away  in  the  reformation,  and  you 
now  approach  the  modern  mansion,  (for  the  old  hall  is 
down  or  deserted,)  circuitously,  after  the  lashion  of  one 
of  the  representatives  of  the  people  making  a  speech  in 
parliament,  who  prefers  taking  two  hours  to  reach  a  con- 
clusion at  which  he  might  have  arrived  by  driving  on 
straight  forward,  in  about  five  minutes  and  a  half,  going 
at  the  accelerated  but  not  unreasonable  rate  of  eight  miles 
an  hour.  Perhaps  an  old  kirk,  or  church  be  it — the  very 
parish  one — is  found  to  be  too  near  the  house  ;  for,  though 
faint,  and  far  off,  still  when  the  atmosphere  is  clear,  and 
the  wind  west,  you  can  hear  the  voice  of  psalms;  and 
therefore  that  the  silence  of  Sabbath  may  not  be  rudely 
disturbed,  the  kirk  or  church,  with  spire  or  tower,  is 
swept  away,  and  its  burial-ground,  so  inoffensive  with  its 
"  low  memorials  still  erected  nigh,"  shut  up — but  no — 
that  may  not  be — for  the  poor  parishioners  will  insist  on 
laying  their  bones  beside  those  of  their  forefathers;  and 
surely  a  few  funerals  in  the  year — say  a  score  at  the 
most — need  not  spoil  the  rich  man's  appetite  for  dinner — 
if  appetite  he  otherwise  woidd  have  had;  nor  may  the 
holy  bell  that  used  to  toll  to  [)rayer  now  be  heard  with  its 
little  cracked  tinkling,  so  much  louder  is  the  gong  that 
summons  to  lunch  or  tiffin,  and  sets  the  flunkies  afioat 
through  all  the  staircases  from  parlour  to  pantry,  from 
Moll,  the  peony-rose  of  the  kitchen,  to  Louisa,  the  white 
lily  of  the  drawing-room,  languishing  and  luxury  being 
alike  the  order  of  the  day,  from  cellar  to  garret ;  for  in 
high  life,  both  above  and  below  stairs, 

"  Love  is  heaven,  and  heaven  is  love." 


TREES.  105 

Let  all  people,  then,  beware  of  dealers  in  the  picturesque; 
for  they  are  universally  greedy,  and  generally  ignorant, 
and  may  do  more  harm  in  a  week  than  nature  can  repair 
in  a  year.  Get  some  painter  of  genius,  like  Andrew 
Wilson,  or  William  Allan,  or  John  Watson  Gordon,  or 
Hugh  Williams,  or  Alexander  Nasmyth,  or  Mr.  Thomson 
of  Duddingstone,  to  come  sauntering  out  with  his  portfolio, 
and  take  up  his  abode  for  a  few  days  in  your  friendly 
house,  strolling  about  with  you  during  the  forenoons 
among  the  banks  and  braes,  and  beautifying  the  paper 
during  the  evenings  with  fair  creations  of  taste  and  fancy, 
prophetic  of  the  future  beauties  and  glories  that  shall  ere 
long  be  overshadowing  your  estate.  They  will  not  scare 
the  naiads,  the  dryads,  and  the  hamadryads,  from  their 
old  haunted  nooks — the  fairies  will  not  fly  their  approach, 
any  more  than  the  rooks  and  herons — in  every  pool  and 
tarn,  nature  will  behold  herself  not  only  in  undiminished 
but  in  heightened  charms — Flora  will  walk  hand  in  hand 
with  Pomona,  and  the  two  together  will  smile  sweetly  on 
old  Father  Pan,  roaming  in  all  his  original  hairiness  in  the 
forests.  And  haply  you  may  have  among  your  friends 
some  poet 

"  Who  murmurs  near  the  hidden  brooks 
A  music  sweeter  than  their  own ;" 

Him  you  may  consult,  at  close  of  his  noontide  revery, 
and  from  his  sown  words  will  spring  up  all  varieties  of 
grace,  loveliness,  and  majesty,  till  every  woodland  mur- 
mur breathes  of  poetry,  and  poetry  brightens  from  the 
heaven  of  every  tree-and-cloud-shadowed  water,  asleep 
within  the  silence  of  the  solitary  woods. 

Of  the  multitude  of  thoughts  within  us,  we  know  not  one 
more  cheering  than  the  belief,  that  the  world  is,  and  ever 
must  be,  in  a  state  of  very  great  ignorance  about  all  those 
things  that  are  of  most  avail  to  human  use  or  pleasure. 
There  is  a  perpetual  flux  and  reflux — ebb  and  flow  of  all 
things  on  the  face  of  this  our  pleasant  earth.  Look  up  to 
the  hill-side,  and  you  see  the  waterline  of  beauty,  parallel 
to  that  on  the  opposite  green  range,  telling  that  long  ago  a 
loch  filled  the  valley,  till  it  burst  the  mound  that  confined 
it,  and  away  it  flowed  on,  in  a  river,  to  the  sea.     Look  on 


106  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

those  ruins,  apparently  of  houses — inland  now,  it  may  be 
said — yet  shells  are  to  be  gathered  still  round  the  garden 
wall,  touched  in  the  olden  time  by  the  foot  of  the  flowing 
Neptune.  Or  look  into  that  lucid  bay,  and  you  will  see 
the  roofs  and  chimney-tops  of  what  once  were  cottages — 
cottages  that  stood  at  night  on  the  shore,  twinkling  like 
stars ;  while  on  the  silvery  sands  between  them  and  the 
sea  the  fishermen  dried  their  nets.  All  this  is  at  once 
melancholy  and  consoling,  to  be  thought  of  alternately 
with  a  smile  and  a  tear.  Then  for  the  march  of  intellect, 
it  is  fortunately  often  retrograde;  for,  if  it  were  not,  intellect 
would  march  on  to  the  utmost  possible  length  of  its  tether — 
break  the  tether — and  fall  over  "  the  back  of  beyond."  But 
intellect  has  more  sense  ;  and,  therefore,  may  be  often  seen 
suddenly  ordering  the  whole  army  to  halt,  light  and  heavy 
brigades  alike,  going  into  winter  quarters, — encamping  on 
the  spot,  or  perhaps  falling  back  upon  the  wagons  and 
commissariat.  Thus  it  is  impossible  that  the  grand  cam- 
paign can  ever  come  to  an  end  till  the  stars  slacken  in 
their  courses,  and  the  sun  is  kicked  out  of  that  solar  system 
of  his,  where  he  is  seen  "  outshining  like  a  visible  god, 
the  path  on  which  he  trode," — kicked  out  of  his  own  solar 
system,  just  like  a  football. 

Thus,  to  return  to  trees.  Trees  have  been  planted  for 
these  six  thousand  years  and  upwards,  and  yet  were  some 
forester  who  planted,  long  before  the  Christian  era,  the 
palm-trees  by  the  wells  of  Palestine — or  the  cedars  from 
Lebanon  along  the  banks  of  the  brook  Kedron — to  open 
his  eyes  to  a  perusal  of  Monteath's  Forest  Guide,  we  do 
not  believe  that  the  good  old  Jew  would  think  the  Galwe- 
gian  a  whit  wiser  than  himself — or  that  he  would  even 
think  Sir  Walter  had  worked  a  miracle  in  that  famous 
article  of  his  on  Planting,  No.  72,  of  that  thriving  journal 
the  Quarterly  Review.  Though  we  think  we  could  point 
out  a  few  rather  important  mistakes  in  the  moral  wisdom 
of  Solomon,  yet  we  perfectly  agree  with  him  in  his  apo- 
thegm, "  that  there  is  nothing  new  under  the  sun."  That 
Solomon  knew  both  the  theory  and  practice  of  transplant- 
ing old  trees,  we  are  not  without  good  reason  for  believing; 
though,  at  the  same  time,  could  we  suppose  him,  by  a 
bold  anachronism,  to  have  visited  Allanton  alonii  with  the 


TREES.  107 

Committee  of  the  Highland  Society,  to  see  and  report  on 
the  wonders  wrought  there  by  Sir  Henry  Steuart,  Bart., 
we  have  no  doubt  that  he  would  have  lifted  up  his  hands 
in  no  little  astonishment,  and  confessed,  that  in  all  his 
transplantings,  from  the  cedar  on  Lebanon  to  the  hyssop 
on  the  wall,  he  had  never  beheld  such  a  sudden  and  fairy 
enchantment,  not  even  raised  by  his  own  magical  ring 
that  built  Balbec  and  Syrian  Tadmor  in  the  desert,  as 
that  now  overshading  that  park  and  its  own  swan-fre- 
quented loch. 


BIRDS. 

(Blackwood's  Edinburgh  Magazine,  1820.) 


****** 

We  had  once  intended  to  entitle  our  leading  article, 
"  Characters  of  Living  Poets."  *  *  * 

After  dashing  off  the  concluding  words  of  our  essay, 
("  the  most  glorious  age  of  British  Poetry,")  our  thoughts 
began  to  wander  away,  by  some  fine  associations,  into  the 
woods  of  our  childhood,  "Bards  of  Scotland  !  Birds  of 
Scotland  !"  and  at  that  very  moment,  we  heard  the  loud, 
clear,  mellow,  bold  song  of  the  Blackbird.  There  he 
flits  along  upon  a  strong  wing,  with  his  yellow  bill  visible 
in  distance,  and  disappears  in  the  silent  wood.  Not  long 
silent.  It  is  a  spring-day  in  our  imagination, — his  clay- 
wall  nest  holds  his  mate  at  the  foot  of  the  silver-fir,  and  he 
is  now  perched  on  its  pinnacle.  That  thrilling  hymn  will 
go  vibrating  down  the  stem  till  it  reaches  her  brooding 
breast.  The  whole  vernal  air  is  filled  with  the  murmur 
and  the  glitter  of  insects, — but  the  blackbird's  song  is  over 
ail  other  symptoms  of  love  and  life,  and  seems  to  call  upon 
the  leaves  to  unfold  into  beauty.  It  is  on  that  one  tree- 
top,  conspicuous  among  many  thousands  on  the  fine  breast 
of  wood,  where,  here  and  there,  the  pine  mingles  not  un- 
meetly  with  the  prevailing  oak, — that  the  forest-minstrel 
sits  in  his  inspiration.  The  rock  above  is  one  which  we 
have  often  climbed.  There  lies  the  glorious  loch  and  all 
its  islands — one  dearer  than  the  rest  to  eye  and  imagina- 
tion, with  its  old  religious  house, — year  after  year  crum- 
bling away  unheeded  into  more  entire  ruin  !  Far  away,  a 
sea  of  mountains,  with  all  their  billowing  summits  distinct 
in  the  sky,  and  now  uncertain  and  changeful  as  the  clouds  ! 
Yonder  castle  stands  well  on  the  peninsula  among  the 


BIRDS.  109 

trees  which  the  herons  inhabit.  Those  coppice  woods  on 
the  other  shore  stealing  up  to  the  heathery  rocks,  and 
sprinkled  birches,  are  the  haunts  of  the  roe  !  That  great 
glen,  that  stretches  sullenly  away  into  the  distant  darkness, 
has  been  for  ages  the  birth  and  the  death-place  of  the  red 
deer.  Hark,  'tis  the  cry  of  an  eagle  !  There  he  hangs 
poised  in  the  sunlight,  and  now  he  flies  ofT  towards  the  sea. 
— But  again  the  sona;  of  our  Blackbird  "  rises  like  a 
steam  of  rich  distilled  perfumes,"  and  our  heart  comes 
back  to  him  upon  the  pinnacle  of  his  own  home-tree. 
The  source  of  song  is  yet  in  the  happy  creature's  heart — 
but  the  song  itself  has  subsided,  like  a  mountain-torrent 
that  has  been  rejoicing  in  a  sudden  shower  among  the 
hills;  the  bird  drops  down  among  the  balmy  branches; 
and  the  other  faint  songs  which  that  bold  anthem  had 
drowned,  are  heard  at  a  distance,  and  seem  to  encroach 
every  moment  on  the  silence. 

You  say  you  greatly  prefer  the  song  of  the  Thrush. 
Pray,  why  set  such  delightful  singers  by  the  ears?  We 
dislike  the  habit  that  very  many  people  have  of  trying 
every  thing  by  a  scale.  Nothing  seems  to  them  to  be 
good — positively — only  relatively.  Now,  it  is  true  wis- 
dom to  be  charmed  with  what  is  charming,  to  live  in  it, 
for  the  time  being,  and  compare  the  emotion  with  no 
former  edition  whatever — unless  it  be  unconsciously  in  the 
working  of  an  imagination  set  a-going  by  delight.  Who,  in 
reading  this  magazine,  for  example,  would  compare  or  con- 
trast it  with  any  other  periodical  under  heaven  1  You  read 
it — and  each  article  is  felt  to  be  admirable  or  execrable — 
purely  for  its  own  sake.  You  love  or  you  hate  it,  as  the, 
not  as  A  magazine.  You  hug  it  to  your  heart,  or  you 
make  it  spin  to  the  other  end  of  the  room,  simply  because 
it  is  Blackwood's  Magazine,  without,  during  the  intensity 
of  your  emotion,  remembering  that  Colburn's  or  the 
Monthly,  or  the  London,  or  the  European,  or  the  Ladies', 
or  the  Gentleman's,  exists.  No  doubt,  as  soon  as  the 
emotion  has  somewhat  subsided,  you  do  begin  to  think  of 
the  other  periodicals.  On  stooping  to  pick  up  the  number 
that  so  aroused  your  wrath,  you  say,  "  I  will  subscribe 
for  the  New  Monthly," — yet  no  sooner  have  the  words 
escaped  your  lips  than  you  blush,  like  a  flower  unseen,  at 

VOL.  I.  10 


110  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

your  own  folly.  Your  own  folly  stares  you  in  the  face, 
and  out  of  countenance — you  bless  your  stars  that  no- 
body was  in  the  room  at  the  time — you  re-read  the  article, 
and  perceive,  in  your  amended  temper,  that  it  is  full  of  the 
most  important  truths,  couched  in  the  most  elegant  lan- 
guage. You  dissolve  into  tears  of  remorse  and  penitence, 
— and  vow  to  remain  a  faithful  subscriber  on  this  side — at 
least — of  the  grave. 

Although,  therefore,  we  cannot  say  that  we  prefer  the 
thrush  to  the  blackbird,  yet  we  agree  with  you  in  thinking 
it  a  most  delightful  bird.  Where  a  thrush  is,  we  defy  you 
to  anticipate  his  song  in  the  morning.  He  is  indeed  an 
early  riser.  By  the  way,  chanticleer  is  far  from  being  so. 
You  hear  him  crowing  away  from  shortly  after  midnight, 
and,  in  your  simplicity,  may  suppose  him  to  be  up,  and 
strutting  about  the  premises.  Far  from  it ; — he  is  at  that 
very  moment  perched  in  his  polygamy  between  two  of  his 
fattest  wives.  The  sultan  will  perhaps  not  stir  a  foot  for 
several  hours  to  come;  while  all  the  time  the  thrush,  hav- 
ing long  ago  rubbed  his  eyes,  is  on  his  topmost  twig, 
broad  awake,  and  charming  the  ear  of  dawn  with  his  beau- 
tiful vociferation.  During  midday  he  disappears,  and  is 
mute  ;  but  again  at  dewy  even,  as  at  dewy  morn,  he  pours 
his  pipe  like  a  prodigal,  nor  ceases  sometimes,  when  night 
has  brought  the  moon  and  stars.  Best  beloved,  and  most 
beautiful  of  all  thrushes  that  ever  broke  from  the  blue-spotted 
shell  ! — thou  who,  for  five  springs,  hast  "hung  thy  procreant 
cradle"  among  the  roses,  and  honeysuckles,  and  ivy,  and 
clematis,  that  embower  in  bloom  the  lattice  of  my  cottage- 
study — how  farest  thou  now  in  the  snow! — Consider  the 
whole  place  as  your  own,  my  dear  bird ;  and  remember, 
that  when  the  gardeners  children  sprinkle  food  for  you 
and  yours  all  along  your  favourite  haunts,  that  it  is  done 
by  our  orders.  And  when  all  the  earth  is  green  again, 
and  all  the  sky  blue,  you  will  welcome  us  to  our  rural 
domicile,  with  light  feet  running  before  us  among  the 
winter  leaves,  and  then  skim  away  to  your  new  nest  in  the 
old  spot,  then  about  to  be  somewhat  more  cheerful  in  the 
undisturbing  din  of  the  human  life  within  the  flowery  walls. 

Why  do  the  songs  of  the  Blackbird  and  Thrush  make 
us  think  of  the  sonsjless  Starling  ?     It  matters  not.     We 


BIRDS.  Ill 

do  think  of  him,  and  see  him  too — a  beautiful  bird,  and 
his  abode  is  majestic.  What  an  object  of  wonder  and  awe 
is  an  old  castle  to  a  boyish  imagination  !  Its  height  how 
dreadful  !  up  to  whose  mouldering  edges  his  fear  carries 
him,  and  hangs  him  over  the  battlements  !  What  beauty 
in  those  unapproachable  wall-flowers,  that  cast  a  bright- 
ness on  the  old  brown  stones  of  the  edifice,  and  make  the 
horror  pleasing  !  That  sound  so  far  below  is  the  sound  of 
a  stream  the  eye  cannot  reach — of  a  waterfall  echoing  for 
ever  among  the  black  rocks  and  pools.  The  schoolboy 
knows  but  little  of  the  history  of  the  old  castle, — but  that 
little  is  of  war,  and  witchcraft,  and  imprisonment,  and 
bloodshed.  The  ghostly  glimmer  of  antiquity  appals  him 
— he  visits  the  ruin  only  with  a  companion  and  at  midday. 
There  and  then  it  was  that  we  first  saw  a  starling.  We 
heard  something  wild  and  wonderful  in  their  harsh  scream, 
as  they  sat  upon  the  edge  of  the  battlements,  or  flew  out 
of  the  chinks  and  crannies.  There  were  martens  too,  so 
different  in  their  looks  from  the  pretty  house-swallows — 
jackdaws  clamouring  afresh  at  every  time  we  waved  our 
hats,  or  vainly  slung  a  pebble  towards  their  nests — and 
one  grove  of  elms,  to  whose  top,  much  lower  than  the 
castle,  came,  ever  and  anon,  some  noiseless  heron  from  the 
muirs. 

Higher  and  higher  than  ever  rose  the  tower  of  Belus, 
soars  and  sings  the  Lark,  the  lyrical  poet  of  the  sky. 
Listen,  listen  !  and  the  more  remote  the  bird,  the  louder 
is  his  hymn  in  heaven.  He  seems  in  his  loftiness,  to 
have  left  the  earth  for  ever,  and  to  have  forgotten  his 
lowly  nest.  The  primroses  and  daisies,  and  all  the  sweet 
hill-flowers,  must  be  unremembered  in  the  lofty  region 
of  light.  But  just  as  the  lark  is  lost — he  and  his  song 
together — both  are  again  seen  and  heard  wavering  down 
the  sky,  and  in  a  little  while  he  is  walking  contentexl 
along  the  furrows  of  the  brairded  corn,  or  on  the 
clover  lea,  that  has  not  fell  the  plough-share  for  half  a 
century. 

In  our  boyish  days,  we  never  felt  that  the  spring 
had  really  come,  till  the  clear-singing  lark  went  career- 
ing before  our  gladdened  eyes  away  up  to  heaven.  Then 
all  the  earth  wore  a  vernal  look,  and  the  ringing  sky  said. 


112  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

"  wintei"  is  over  and  gone."  As  we  roamed,  on  a  holiday, 
over  the  wide  pastoral  moors,  to  angle  in  the  lochs  and 
pools,  unless  the  day  were  very  cloudy,  the  song  of  some 
lark  or  other  was  still  warbling  aloll,  and  made  a  part  of 
our  happiness.  The  creature  could  not  have  been  more 
joyful  in  the  skies,  than  we  were  on  the  greensward.  We, 
too,  had  our  wings,  and  flew  through  our  holiday.  Thou 
soul  of  glee  !  who  still  leddest  our  flight  in  all  our  pas- 
times! — bold,  bright,  and  beautiful  child  of  Erin! — for 
many  and  many  a  long,  long  year  hast  thou  been  mingled 
with  the  dust !  Dead  and  gone,  as  if  they  had  never  been, 
all  the  captivations  of  thy  voice,  eye,  laugh,  motion,  and 
hand,  open  as  day  to  "  melting  charity  !" — He,  too,  the 
grave  and  thoughtful  English  boy,  whose  exquisite  scholar- 
ship we  all  so  enthusiastically  admired,  without  one  single 
particle  of  hopeless  envy, — and  who  accompanied  us  on 
all  our  wildest  expeditions,  rather  from  affection  to  his 
playmates  than  any  love  of  their  sports, — he  who,  timid 
and  unadvcnturous  as  he  seemed  to  be,  yet  rescued  little 
Marian  of  the  Brae  from  a  drowning  death,  when  so  many 
grown  up  men  stood  aloof  in  selfish  fear, — gone,  too,  for 
ever  art  thou,  my  beloved  Edward  Harrington  !  and,  after 
a  kw  brilliant  years  in  the  oriental  clime, 

"on  Honglcy's  banks  afar, 

Looks  down  on  tliy  lone  tomb  the  evening  star." 

Methinks  we  hear  the  "  song  o'  the  Gray  Lintie,"  per- 
haps the  darling  bird  of  Scotland.  None  other  is  more 
tenderly  sung  of  in  our  old  ballads.  When  the  simple  and 
fervent  love-poets  of  our  pastoral  times  first  applied  to  the 
maiden  the  words  "  my  bonnie  burdie,"  they  must  have 
been  thinking  of  the  gray  lintie — its  plumage  ungaudy 
and  soberly  pure — its  shape  elegant,  yet  unobtrusive — 
and  its  song  various  without  any  eflbrt — now  rich,  gay, 
sprightly,  but  never  rude  or  riotous — now  tender,  almost 
mournful,  but  never  gloomy  or  desponding.  So,  too,  arc 
all  its  habits  endearing  and  delightful.  It  is  social,  yet 
not  averse  to  solitude,  singing  often  in  groups,  and  as  ofien 
by  itself  in  the  furze-brake,  or  on  the  briary  knoll.  You 
often  find  the  lintie's  nest  in  the  most  solilnry  [)laccs — in 


BIRDS.  11 

some  small  self-sown  clump  of  trees  by  the  brink  of  a 
wild  hill-stream,  or  on  the  tangled  edge  of  a  forest ;  and 
just  as  often  you  find  it  in  the  hedgerow  of  the  cottage 
garden,  or  in  a  bower  within,  or  even  in  an  old  gooseberry 
bush  that  has  grown  into  a  sort  of  tree. 

One  wild  and  beautiful  place  we  well  remember — ay, 
the  very  bush  in  which  we  first  found  a  gray  linnet's 
nest — for,  in  our  native  parish,  from  some  cause  or  other,  it 
was  rather  a  rarish  bird.  That  far-away  day  is  as  dis- 
tinct as  the  present  now.  Imagine,  friend,  first,  a  little 
well  surrounded  with  wild  cresses  on  the  moor,  something 
like  a  rivulet  flows  from  it,  or  rather  you  see  a  deep  tinge 
of  verdure,  the  line  of  which,  you  believe,  must  be  pro- 
duced by  the  oozing  moisture — you  follow  it,  by  and  by 
there  is  a  descent  palpable  to  your  feet — then  you  find 
yourself  between  low  broomy  knolls,  that,  heightening 
every  step,  become  ere  long  banks,  and  braes,  and  hills. 
You  are  surprised  now  to  see  a  stream,  and  look  round  for 
its  source — there  seem  now  to  be  a  hundred  small  sources 
in  fissures,  and  springs  on  every  side — you  hear  the  mur- 
murs of  its  course  over  beds  of  sand  and  gravel — and  hark, 
a  waterfall  I  A  tree  or  two  begins  to  shake  its  tresses  on 
the  horizon — a  birch  or  a  rowan.  You  get  ready  your 
angle — and  by  the  lime  you  have  panniered  three  dozen, 
you  are  at  a  wooden  bridge — you  fish  the  pool  above  it 
with  the  delicate  dexterity  of  a  Boaz,  capture  the  monarch 
of  the  flood,  and  on  lifting  your  eyes  from  his  starry  side 
as  he  gasps  his  last  on  the  silvery  shore,  you  behold  a  cot- 
tage, at  one  gable  end  an  ash,  at  the  other  a  sycamore, 
and  standing  perhaps  at  the  lonely  door,  a  maiden  far 
more  beautiful  than  any  angel. 

This  is  the  age  of  confessions  ;  and  why,  therefore,  may 
we  not  make  a  confession  of  first  love?  I  had  finished  my 
sixteenth  year, — I  was  almost  as  tall  as  I  am  now, — almost 
as  tall !  Yes,  yes, — for  my  figure  was  then  straight  as  an 
arrow,  and  almost  like  an  arrow  in  its  flight.  I  had  given 
over  bird-nesting, — but  1  had  not  ceased  to  visit  the  dell 
where  first  1  found  the  gray  lintie's  brood.  Tale-writers 
are  told  by  critics  to  remember  that  the  young  shepherdesses 
of  Scotland  are  not  beautiful  as  the  fictions  of  a  poet's 
dream.  But  she  was  beautiful  beyond  poetry.  She  was 
10* 


114  MILSOK's  SriSCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS. 

SO  then,  when  passion  and  imagination  were  young, — and 
her  image,  her  nndying,  unfading  image,  is  so  now,  when 
passion  and  imagination  are  old,  and  when  from  eye  and 
soul  have  disappeared  much  of  th.e  beauty  and  glory  both 
of  nature  and  life.  I  loved  her  from  the  first  moment  that 
our  eyes  met, — and  I  see  their  light  at  this  moment,  the 
same  soft,  bright,  burning  light,  that  set  body  and  sou!  on 
fire.  She  was  but  a  poor  shepherd\s  daughter ;  but  what 
was  that  to  me,  when  I  heard  her  voice  singing  one  of  her 
old  plaintive  ballads  among  the  braes, — when  1  sat  down 
beside  her, — when  the  same  plaid  was  drawn  over  our 
shoulders  in  the  rain-storm, — when  I  asked  her  for  a  kiss, 
and  was  not  refused, — for  what  had  she  to  fear  in  her 
beauty,  and  her  innocence,  and  her  filial  piety, — and  was 
not  I  a  mere  boy,  in  the  bliss  of  passion,  ignorant  of  deceit 
or  dishonour,  and  with  a  heart  open  to  the  eyes  of  all  as  to 
the  gates  of  heaven  7  What  music  was  in  that  stream! 
Could  "  Sabean  odours  from  the  spicy  shores  of  Araby  tlie 
Blest"  so  penetrate  my  soul  with  joy,  as  the  balmy  breatli 
of  tlie  broom  on  which  we  sat,  forgetful  of  all  other  human 
life  !  Father,  mother,  brothers,  sisters,  uncles,  and  aunts, 
and  cousins,  and  all  the  tribe  of  friends  that  would  throw 
me  off, — if  I  should  be  so  base  and  mad  as  to  marry  a 
low-born,  low-bred,  ignorant,  uneducated,  crafty,  ay,  crafty 
and  designing  beggar, — were  all  forgotten  in  my  deli- 
rium,— if  indeed  it  were  delirium, — and  not  an  everlastingly 
sacred  devotion  of  the  soul  to  nature  and  to  truth.  For  in 
what  was  I  deluded  1  A  voice, — a  faint  and  dewy  voice, — 
deadened  by  the  earth  that  fills  up  her  grave,  and  by  the 
turf  that,  at  this  very  hour,  is  expanding  its  primroses  to 
the  dew  of  heaven, — answers,  "  In  nothing  !" 

"Ha!  ha!  ha!"  exclaims  some  reader  in  derision, 
"  here's  an  attempt  at  the  pathetic,  a  miserable  attempt 
indeed,  for  who  cares  about  the  death  of  a  mean  hut-girl  I 
we  are  sick  of  low  life."  Why,  as  to  that  matter,  who 
cares  for  the  death  of  any  one  mortal  being  ?  Who  weeps 
for  the  death  of  the  late  Emperor  of  all  the  Russias  ?  Who 
wept  over  Napoleon  the  Great'.'  When  Chatham  or  Burke, 
Pitt  or  Fox  died — don't  pretend  to  tell  lies  about  a  nation's 
tears.  And  if  yourself,  who,  perhaps,  arc  not  in  low  life, 
were  to  die  in  half  an   hour,  (don't  be  alarmed,)  all  who 


I5IRDS.  115 

knew  you,  except  two  or  three  of  your  bosom  friends,  who, 
partly  from  being  somewhat  dull,  and  partly  from  wishing 
to  be  decent,  might  blubber — would  walk  along  Prince's 
Street  at  the  fashionable  hour  of  three,  the  very  day  after 
your  funeral.  Nor  would  it  ever  enter  their  heads  to 
abstain  from  a  comfortable  dinner  at  the  British  Hotel, 
ordered,  perhaps,  a  month  ago,  at  which  time  you  were  in 
rude  health,  merely  because  you  had  foolishly  allowed  a 
cold  to  fasten  upon  your  lungs,  and  carry  you  off  in  the 
prime  and  promise  of  your  professional  life.  In  spite  of 
all  your  critical  slang,  therefore,  Mr.  Editor  or  Master 
Contributor  to  some  literary  journal,  she,  though  a  poor 
Scottish  Herd,  was  most  beautiful ;  and  when,  but  a  week 
after  taking  farewell  of  her,  I  went,  according  to  our  tryst, 
to  fold  her  in  my  arms,  and  was  told  by  her  poor  father 
that  she  was  dead, — ay,  dead  and  buried — that  she  had  no 
existence — that  neither  the  daylight  nor  I  should  ever 
more  be  gladdened  by  her  presence — that  she  was  in  a 
cofiln,  six  feet  in  earth — that  the  worms  were  working  their 
way  towards  the  body,  to  crawl  into  her  bosom — that  she 
was  fast  becoming  one  mass  of  corruption — when  I  awoke 
from  the  dead-fit  of  horrid  dreams  in  which  I  had  lain  on 
the  floor  of  my  Agnes's  own  cottage,  and  cursed  the  sight 
of  the  heaven  and  the  earth,  and  shuddered  at  the  thought 

of  the  dread  and  dismal  God — when  1 

We  wish  that  we  had  lying  on  the  table  before  us  Gra- 
hame's  pleasant  poem,  "The  Birds  of  Scotland  ;"  but  we 
lent  our  copy  some  years  ago  to  a  friend — and  a  friend 
never  returns  a  borrowed  book.  But  here  is  a  very  agree- 
able substitute — "  A  Treatise  on  British  Song  Birds,"  pub- 
lished by  John  Anderson,  jun.,  Edinburgh,  and  Simpkin  & 
Marshall,  London.  The  small  musicians  are  extremely 
well  engraved  by  Mr.  Scott,  of  Edinburgh,  from  very  cor- 
rect and  beautiful  drawings,  done  by  an  English  artist, 
and  there  is  a  well-written  introduction,  of  forty  pages, 
from  the  pen  of  Mr.  Patrick  Symo.  We  presume  that  the 
rest  of  the  letter-press  is  by  the  same  gentleman — and  it 
does  him  very  great  credit.  The  volume  includes  observa- 
tions on  their  natural  habits,  and  manner  of  incubation  ; 
with  remarks  on  the  treatment  of  the  young,  and  manage- 
ment of  the  old  birds,  in  a  domestic  state. 


116  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

"  The  delightful  music  of  song-birds  is,  perhaps,  the 
chief  reason  why  these  charming  little  creatures  are,  in  all 
countries,  so  highly  prized.  Music  is  an  universal  lan- 
guage ; — it  is  understood  and  cherished  in  every  country — 
the  savage,  the  barbarian,  and  the  civilized  individual,  are 
all  passionately  fond  of  music,  particularly  of  melody. 
But,  delightful  as  music  is,  perhaps  there  is  another  reason 
that  may  have  led  man  to  deprive  the  warblers  of  the 
woods  and  fields  of  liberty,  particularly  in  civilized  states, 
where  the  intellect  is  more  refined,  and,  consequently,  the 
feelings  more  adapted  to  receive  tender  impressions  ; — we 
mean  the  associations  of  ideas.  Their  sweet  melody 
brings  him  more  particularly  in  contact  with  groves  and 
meadows — with  romantic  banks,  or  beautiful  sequestered 
glades — the  cherished  scenes,  perhaps,  of  his  early  youth. 
But,  independent  of  this,  the  warble  of  a  sweet  song-bird 
is,  in  itself,  very  delightful ; — and,  to  men  of  sedentary 
habits,  confined  to  cities  by  professional  duties,  and  to 
their  desks  most  part  of  the  day,  we  do  not  know  a  more 
innocent  or  more  agreeable  recreation  than  the  rearing  and 
training  of  these  little  feathered  musicians." 

Now,  we  hear  many  of  our  readers  crying  out  against 
the  barbarity  of  confining  the  free  denizens  of  the  air  in 
wire  or  wicker  cages.  Gentle  readers,  do,  we  pray,  keep 
your  compassion  for  other  objects.  Or,  if  you  are  disposed 
to  be  argumentative  with  us,  let  us  just  walk  down  stairs 
to  the  larder,  and  tell  the  public  truly  what  we  there  be- 
hold— three  brace  of  partridges,  two  ditto  of  moor-fowl,  a 
cock-pheasant,  poor  fellow, — a  man  and  liis  wife  of  the 
aquatic,  or  duck  kind,  and  a  woodcock,  vainly  presenting 
his  long  Christmas  bill — 

"  .Some  slopping  kill'd — 
All  niurdor'd." — 

Why,  you  are  indeed  a  most  logical  reasoncr,  and  a  most 
considerate  Christian,  wlien  you  launch  out  into  an  invec- 
tive against  the  cruelty  exhibited  in  our  cages.  Let  us 
leave  this  den  of  murder,  and  have  a  glass  of  our  wife's 
home-made  frontiniac  in  her  own  boudoir.  (Jome,  come, 
sir, — look  on  this  newly  married  couple  of  canaries.    The 


BIRDS.  117 

architecture  of  their  nest  is  certainly  not  of  the  florid  order, 
but  my  Lady  Ycllovvlces  sits  on  it  a  well  satisfied  bride. 
Come  back  in  a  day  or  two,  and  you  will  see  her  nursing 
triplets.  Meanwhile,  hear  the  earpiercing  fife  of  the  bride- 
groom ! — Where  will  you  find  a  set  of  happier  people, 
unless,  perhaps,  it  be  in  our  parlour,  or  our  library,  or  our 
nursery  ?  For,  to  tell  you  the  truth,  there  is  a  cage  or 
two  in  almost  every  room  of  the  house.  Where  is  the 
cruelty — here,  or  in  your  blood-stained  larder?  But  you 
must  eat,  you  reply.  We  answer — not  necessarily  birds. 
The  question  is  about  birds — cruelty  to  birds ;  and  were 
that  sagacious  old  wild-goose,  whom  one  single  moment  of 
heedlessness  brought  last  Wednesday  to  your  hospitable 
board,  at  this  moment  alive,  to  bear  a  part  in  our  convei'- 
sation,  can  you  dream  that,  with  all  your  JefFreyan  inge- 
nuity and  eloquence,  you  could  persuade  him — the  now 
defunct  and  dejected — that  you  were  under  the  painful 
necessity  of  eating  him  with  stuffing  and  apple-sauce? 

The  intelligent  author  of  the  treatise  on  British  birds 
does  not  condescend  to  justify  the  right  we  claim  to  encage 
them  ;  but  he  shows  his  genuine  humanity  in  instructing 
us  how  to  render  happy  and  healthful  their  imprisonment. 
He  says  very  prettily,  "  What  are  town-gardens  and  shrub- 
beries in  squares,  but  an  attempt  to  ruralize  the  city  ?  So 
strong  is  the  desire  in  man  to  participate  in  country  plea- 
sures, that  he  tries  to  bring  some  of  them  even  to  his  room. 
Plants  and  birds  are  sought  after  with  avidity,  and  che- 
rished with  delight.  With  flowers  he  endeavours  to  make 
his  apartments  resemble  a  garden  ;  and  thinks  of  groves 
and  fields,  as  he  listens  to  the  wild  sweet  melody  of  his 
little  captives.  Those  who  keep  and  take  an  interest  in 
song-birds,  are  often  at  a  loss  how  to  treat  their  little  war- 
blers during  illness,  or  to  prepare  the  proper  food  best 
suited  to  their  various  constitutions  ;  but  that  knowledge  is 
absolutely  necessary  to  preserve  these  little  creatures  in 
health  :  for  want  of  it,  young  amateurs  and  bird-fnnciers 
have  often  seen,  with  regret,  many  of  their  favourite  birds 
perish." 

Now,  here  we  confess  is  a  good  physician.  In  Edin- 
burgli  we  understand  there  are  about  five  hundred  medical 
practitioners  on  the  human  race, — and  we  have  dog-doc- 


118  Wilson's  misc-klla>'eous  writings. 

tors,  and  horse-doctors,  who  come  out  in  numbers — but 
we  have  had  no  bird-doctors.  Yet  often,  too  often,  when 
the  whole  house  rinys  from  jrarret  to  cellar  with  the  cries 
of  children  teething,  or  in  the  hooping-cough,  the  little  lin- 
net sits  silent  on  his  perch,  a  moping  bunch  of  feathers, 
and  then  falls  down  dead,  when  his  lilting  life  might  have 
been  saved  by  the  simplest  medicinal  food  skilfully  admi- 
nistered. Surely  if  we  have  physicians  to  attend  our  tread- 
mills, and  regulate  tjie  diet  and  day's  work  of  merciless 
ruffians,  we  should  not  sutler  our  innocent  and  useful  pri- 
soners thus  to  die  unattended.  Why  do  not  the  ladies  of 
Edinburgh  form  themselves  into  a  society  for  this  purpose  ? 

Not  one  of  all  the  philosophers  in  the  world  has  been 
able  to  tell  us  what  is  happiness.  Sterne's  Starling  is 
weakly  supposed  to  have  been  miserable.  Probably  he 
was  one  of  the  most  contented  birds  in  the  universe.  Does 
confinement, — the  closest,  most  uncompanioned  confine- 
ment— make  one  of  ourselves  unhappy?  Is  the  shoe- 
maker, sitting  with  his  head  on  his  knees  in  a  hole  in  the 
wall  from  morning  to  night,  in  any  respect  to  be  pitied  ? 
Is  the  solitary  orphan,  that  sits  all  day  sewing  in  a  garret, 
while  the  old  woman  for  whom  she  works  is  out  washing, 
an  object  of  compassion  ?  or  the  widow  of  fourscore,  hurk- 
ling  over  the  embers,  with  a  stump  of  a  pipe  in  her  tooth- 
less mouth?  Is  it  so  sad  a  thing  indeed  to  be  alone?  or 
to  have  one's  motions  circumscribed  within  the  narrowest 
imaginable  limits? — Nonsense  all.  Nine-tenths  of  man- 
kind, in  manufacturing  and  commercial  countries,  are  crib- 
bed and  confined  into  little  room, — generally,  indeed,  to- 
gether, but  often  solitary. 

Then,  gentle  reader,  were  you  ever  in  a  highland  shiel- 
ing? It  is  built  of  turf,  and  is  literally  alive;  for  the 
beautiful  heather  is  blooming,  and  wild-flowers  too — and 
walls  and  roof  are  one  sound  of  bees.  The  industrious 
little  creatures  must  have  come  several  long  miles  for  their 
balmy  spoil.  There  is  but  one  human  creature  in  that 
shieling,  but  he  is  not  at  all  solitary.  He  no  more  wearies 
of  that  lonesome  plnce,  than  do  the  sunbeams  or  the  sha- 
dows. To  himself  alone,  he  chants  his  old  Gaelic  songs, 
or  frames  wild  ditties  of  his  own  to  the  raven  or  red  deer. 
Months  thus  pass  on  ;  and  he  descends  again  to  the  lower 


BIRDS.  119 

country.  Perhaps  he  goes  to  the  wars — fights — bleeds — 
and  returns  to  Badenoch  or  Lochaber  ;  and  once  more, 
blending  in  his  imagination  the  battles  of  his  own  regiment, 
in  Egypt,  or  Spain,  or  at  Waterloo,  with  the  deeds  done  of 
yore  by  Ossian  sung,  lies  contented  by  the  door  of  the 
same  shieling,  restored  and  beautified,  in  which  he  had 
dreamt  away  the  summers  of  his  youth. 

To  return  to  birds  in  cages ; — they  are,  when  well,  uni- 
formly as  happy  as  the  day  is  long.  What  else  could 
oblige  them,  whether  they  will  or  no,  to  burst  out  into 
song, — to  hop  about  so  pleased  and  pert, — to  play  such 
fantastic  tricks  like  so  many  whirligigs, — to  sleep  so  sound- 
ly, and  to  awake  into  a  small,  shrill,  compressed  twitter  of 
joy  at  the  dawn  of  light  ?  So  utterly  mistaken  was  Sterne, 
and  all  the  other  sentimentalists,  that  his  starling,  who  he 
absurdly  opined  was  wishing  to  get  out,  would  not  have 
stirred  a  peg  had  the  door  of  his  cage  been  flung  wide  open, 
but  would  have  pecked  like  a  very  gamecock  at  the  hand 
inserted  to  give  him  his  liberty.  Depend  upon  it,  that 
starling  had  not  the  slightest  idea  of  what  he  was  saying; 
and  had  he  been  up  to  the  meaning  of  his  words,  would 
have  been  shocked  at  his  ungrateful  folly.  Look  at  cana- 
ries, and  chaffinches,  and  bullfinches,  and  "the  rest,"  how 
they  amuse  themselves  for  a  while  flitting  about  the  room, 
and  then  finding  how  dull  a  thing  it  is  to  be  citizens  of  the 
world,  bounce  up  to  their  cages,  and  shut  the  door  from 
the  inside,  glad  to  be  once  more  at  home.  Begin  to -whistle 
or  sing  yourself,  and  forthwith  you  have  a  duet,  or  a  trio. 
We  can  imagine  no  more  perfectly  tranquil  and  cheerful 
life  than  that  of  a  goldfinch  in  a  cage,  in  spring,  with  his 
wife  and  his  children.  All  his  social  affections  are  culti- 
vated to  the  utmost.  He  possesses  many  accomplishments 
unknown  to  his  brethren  among  the  trees; — he  has  never 
known  what  it  is  to  want  a  meal  in  times  of  the  greatest 
scarcity;  and  he  admires  the  beautiful  frostwork  on  the 
windows  when  thousands  of  his  feathered  friends  are  buried 
in  the  snow,  or  what  is  almost  as  bad,  baked  up  into  pies, 
and  devoured  by  a  large  supper  party  of  both  sexes,  who 
fortify  their  flummery  and  flirtation  by  such  viands,  and, 
remorseless,  swallow  dozens  upon  dozens  of  the  warblers 
of  the  woods. 


120  avilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

Ay,  ay,  Mr.  Goldy  !  you  are  wondering  what  I  am  now 
doing,  and  speculating  upon  me  with  arcli  eyes  and  elevated 
crest,  as  if  you  would  know  the  subject  .of  my  lucubrations. 
What  the  wiser  or  better  wouldst  thou  be  of  human  know- 
ledge? Sometimes  that  little  heart  of  thine  goes  pit-a-pat, 
when  a  great,  ugly,  staring  contributor  thrusts  his  inqui- 
sitive nose  within  the  wires — or  when  a  strange  cat  glides 
round  and  round  the  room,  fascinating  thee  with  the  glare 
of  his  fierce  fixed  eyes ; — but  what  is  all  that  to  the  woes 
of  an  editor? — Yes,  sweet  simpleton  !  do  you  not  know 
that  1  am  the  editor  of  Blackwood's  Magazine — Christo- 
pher North  !  Yes,  indeed,  we  are  that  very  man, — that 
self-same  much-calumniated  man-monster  and  Ogre. — 
There,  there ! — perch  on  my  shoulder,  and  let  us  laugh 
together  at  the  whole  world. 


COTTAGES. 

(Blackwood's  Edinburgh  Magazine,  1829.) 


Have  you  any  intention,  dear  reader,  of  building  a 
house  in  the  country  1  If  you  have,  pray,  for  your  own 
sake  and  ours,  let  it  not  be  a  cottage.  We  presume  that 
you  are  obliged  to  live,  one  half  of  the  year  at  least, 
in  a  town.  Then  why  change  altogether  the  character 
of  your  domicile  and  your  establishment?  You  are  an 
inhabitant  of  Edinburgh,  and  have  a  house  in  the  Circus, 
or  Heriot-Row,  or  Abercromby  Place,  or  Queen  Street. 
The  said  house  has  five  or  six  stories,  and  is  such  a 
palace  as  one  might  expect  in  the  City  of  Palaces.  Your 
drawing-rooms  can,  at  a  pinch,  hold  some  ten  score  of 
modern  Athenians — your  dining-room  might  feast  one 
half  of  the  contributors  to  this  Magazine — your  "  placens 
uxor"  has  her  boudoir — your  eldest  daughter,  now  verging 
on  womanhood,  her  music-room — your  boys  their  own 
studio — the  governess  her  retreat — and  the  tutor  his  den 
— the  housekeeper  sits  like  an  overgrown  spider  in  her 
own  sanctum — the  butler  bargains  for  his  dim  apartment 
— and  the  four  maids  must  have  their  front-area-window. 
In  short,  from  cellarage  to  garret,  all  is  complete,  and 
number  forty-two  is  really  a  splendid  mansion. 

Now,  dear  reader,  far  be  it  from  us  to  question  the  pro- 
priety or  prudence  of  such  an  establishment.  Your  house 
was  not  built  for  nothing — it  was  no  easy  thing  to  get  the 
painters  out — the  furnishing  thereof  was  no  trifle — the 
feu-duty  is  really  unreasonable,  and  taxes  are  taxes  still, 
notwithstanding  the  principles  of  free  trade,  and  the  uni- 
versal prosperity  of  the  country.  Servants  are  wasteful, 
and  their  wages  absurd — and  the  whole  style  of  living, 

VOL.   I.  11 


122  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

with  long-necked  bottles,  most  extravagant.  But  still  we 
do  not  object  to  your  establishment, — far  from  it,  we 
admire  it  much — nor  is  there  a  single  house  in  town 
where  we  make  ourselves  more  agreeable  to  a  late  hour, 
or  that  we  leave  with  a  greater  quantity  of  wine  of  a  good 
quality  under  our  girdle.  Few  things  would  give  us  more 
temporary  uneasiness,  than  to  hear  of  any  einbarrassment 
in  your  money  concerns.  Wc  are  not  people  to  forget 
good  fare,  we  assure  you ;  and  long  and  far  may  all 
shapes  of  sorrow  keep  aloof  from  the  hospitable  board, 
whether  illuminated  by  gas,  oil-lamp,  or  candle. 

But  what  we  were  going  to  say  was  this — that  the  head 
of  such  a  house  ought  not  to  live,  when  ruralizing,  in  a 
cotta"e.  He  ought  to  be  consistent.  Nothing  so  beautiful 
as  consistency.  What  then  is  so  absurd  as  to  cram  your- 
self, your  wife,  your  numerous  progeny,  and  your  scarcely 
less  numerous  menials,  into  a  concern  called  a  cottage? 
The  ordinary  heat  of  a  baker's  oven  is  very  few  degrees 
above  that  of  a  brown  study,  during  the  month  of  July,  in 
a  substantial,  low-roofed  cottage.  Then  the  smell  of  the 
kitchen !  How  it  aggravates  the  sultry  closeness !  A 
strange,  compounded,  inexplicable  smell  of  animal,  vege- 
table, and  niineral  matter !  It  is  at  the  worst  during  the 
latter  part  of  the  forenoon,  when  every  thing  has  been 
got  into  preparation  for  cookery.  There  is  then  nothing 
savoury  about  the  smell, — it  is  dull,  dead, — almost  cata- 
combish.  A  small  back  kitchen  has  it  in  its  power  to 
destroy  the  sweetness  of  any  cottage.  Add  a  scullery, 
and  the  three  are  omnipotent.  Of  the  eternal  clashing  of 
pots,  pans,  plates,  trenchers,  and  general  crockery,  we 
now  say  nothing;  indeed,  the  sound  somewhat  relieves  the 
smell,  and  the  car  comes  occasionally  in  to  the  aid  of  the 
nose.  Such  noises  arc  Godsends;  but  not  so  the  scolding 
of  the  cook  and  butler, — at  first  low  and  tetchy,  with 
pauses, — then  sharp,  but  still  interrupted, — by  and  by 
loud  and  ready  in  reply, — finally  a  discordant  gabble  of 
vulgar  fury,  like  maniacs  quarrelling  in  bedlam.  Hear  it 
you  must, — you  and  all  the  strangers.  To  explain  it 
away  is  impossible;  and  your  fear  is,  that  Alecfo,  Tisi- 
phone,  or  Megcera,  will  come  flying  into  the  parlour  with  a 
bloody  cleaver,  dripping  with  the  butler's  brains.     During 


COTTAGES.  123 

the  time  of  the  quarrel,  the  spit  has  been  standing  still, 
and  a  jigot  of  the  five-year-old  black-face  burnt  on  one 
side  to  a  cinder. — "  To  dinner  with  what  appetite  you 
may." 

It  would  be  quite  unpardonable  to  forget  one  especial 
smell  which  irretrievably  ruined  our  happiness  during  a 
whole  summer, — the  smell  of  a  dead  rat.  The  accursed 
vermin  died  somewhere  in  the  cottage;  but  whether  be- 
neath a  floor,  within  lath  and  plaster,  or  in  roof,  baflled 
the  conjectures  of  the  most  sagacious.  The  whole  family 
used  to  walk  about  the  cottage  for  hours  every  day, 
snuffing  on  a  travel  of  discovery ;  and  we  distinctly 
remember  the  face  of  one  elderly  maiden  lady  at  the  mo- 
ment she  thought  she  had  traced  the  source  of  the  fumee 
to  the  wall  behind  a  window-shutter.  But  even  at  the 
very  same  instant  we  ourselves  had  proclaimed  it  with 
open  nostril  from  a  press  in  an  opposite  corner.  Terriers 
were  procured, — but  the  dog  Billy  himself  would  have 
been  at  fault.  To  pull  down  the  whole  cottage  would 
have  been  difficult, — at  least  to  build  it  up  again  would 
have  been  so ;  so  we  had  to  submit.  Custom,  they  say, 
is  second  nature,  but  not  when  a  dead  rat  is  in  the  house. 
No,  none  can  ever  be  accustomed  to  that ;  yet  good 
springs  out  of  evil,  for  the  live  rats  could  not  endure  it, 
and  emigrated  to  a  friend's  house,  about  a  mile  off,  who 
has  never  had  a  sound  night's  rest  from  that  day.  We 
have  not  revisited  our  cottage  for  several  years;  but  time 
does  wonders,  and  we  were  lately  told  by  a  person  of 
some  veracity,  that  the  smell  was  then  nearly  gone, — but 
our  informant  is  a  gentleman  of  blunted  olfactory  nerves, 
having  been  engaged  from  seventeen  to  seventy  in  a 
soap-work. 

Smoke  too  !  More  especially  that  mysterious  and  in- 
fernal sort,  called  back-smoke !  The  old  proverb,  "  No 
smoke  without  fire,"  is  a  base  lie.  We  have  seen  smoke 
without  fire  in  every  room  in  a  most  delightful  cottage  we 
once  inhabited  during  the  dog-days.  The  moment  you 
rushed  for  refuge  even  in  a  closet,  you  were  blinded  and 
stifled;  nor  shall  we  ever  forget  our  horror  on  being  within 
an  ace  of  smotheration  in  the  cellar.  At  last,  we  groped 
our  way  into  the  kitchen.     Neither  cook  nor  jack  was 


124  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

visible.  We  heard,  indeed,  a  whirring  and  revolving 
noise — and  then  suddenly  Girzie  swearing  through  the 
mist.  Yet  all  this  while  people  were  admiring  our  cottage 
from  a  distance,  and  especially  this  self-same  accursed 
back-smoke,  some  portions  of  which  had  made  an  excur- 
sion up  the  chimneys,  and  was  wavering  away  in  a  spiral 
form  to  the  sky,  in  a  style  captivating  to  Mr.  Price  on  the 
Picturesque. 

No  doubt,  there  are  many  things  very  romantic  about  a 
cottage.  Creepers,  for  example.  Why,  sir,  these  creepers 
are  the  most  mischievous  nuisance  that  can  atllict  a  family. 
There  is  no  occasion  for  mentioning  names,  but — devil 
take  all  parasites.  Some  of  the  rogues  will  actually  grow 
a  couple  of  inches  upon  you  in  one  day's  time;  and  when 
all  other  honest  plants  are  asleep,  the  creepers  are  hard  at 
it  all  night  long,  stretching  out  their  toes  and  their  fingers, 
and  catching  an  inextricable  hold  of  every  wall  they  can 
reach,  till,  finally,  you  see  them  thrusting  their  impudent 
heads  through  the  very  slates.  Then,  like  other  low-bred 
creatures,  they  are  covered  with  vermin.  All  manner  of 
moths — the  most  grievous  grubs — slimy  slugs — spiders 
spinning  toils  to  ensnare  the  caterpillar — earwigs  and 
slaters,  that  would  raise  the  gorge  of  a  country  curate — 
wood-lice — the  slaver  of  gowk's-spiltle — midges — ^jocks- 
with-the-many-legs — in  short,  the  whole  plague  of  insects 
infest  that — Virgin's  bower.  Open  the  lattice  for  half  an 
hour,  and  you  find  yourself  in  an  entymological  museum. 
Then,  there  are  no  pins  fixing  down  the  specimens.  All 
these  beetles  are  alive,  more  especially  the  enormous 
blackguard  crawling  behind  your  ear.  A  moth  plumps 
into  your  tumbler  of  cold  negus,  and  goes  whirling  round 
in  meal,  till  he  makes  absolute  porritch.  As  you  open 
your  mouth  in  amazement,  the  large  blue-bottle-fly,  having 
made  his  escape  from  the  spiders,  and  seeing  that  not  a 
moment  is  to  be  lost,  precipitates  himself  head-foremost 
down  your  throat,  and  is  felt,  after  a  few  ineffectual 
struggles,  settling  in  despair  at  the  very  bottom  of  your 
stomach.  Still,  no  person  will  ^e  so  unreasonaljle  as  to 
deny  that  creepers  on  a  cottage  are  most  beautiful.  For 
the  sake  of  their  beauty,  some  little  sacrifices  must  be 
made  of  one's  comforts,  especially  as  it  is  only  for  one 


COTTAGES.  125 

half  of  the  year,  and  last  really  was  a  most  delightful 
summer. 

How  truly  romantic  is  a  thatch  roof!  The  eaves  how 
commodious  for  sparrows !  VVhat  a  paradise  for  rats  and 
mice  !  What  a  comfortable  colony  of  vermin  !  They  all 
bore  their  own  tunnels  in  every  direction,  and  the  whole 
interior  becomes  a  Cretan  labyrinth.  Frush,  frush  be- 
comes the  whole  cover  in  a  few  seasons  ;  and  not  a  bird 
can  open  his  wing,  not  a  rat  switch  his  tail,  without  scat- 
tering the  straw  like  chaff.  Eternal  repairs  !  Look  when 
you  will,  and  half  a  dozen  thatchers  are  riding  on  the  rig- 
ging :  of  all  operatives  they  are  most  inoperative.  Then 
there  is  always  one  of  the  number  descending  the  ladder 
foj  a  horn  of  ale  !  Without  warning,  the  straw  is  all  used 
up ;  and  no  more  fit  for  the  purpose  can  be  got  within 
twenty  miles.  They  hint  heather — and  you  sigh  for  slate 
— the  beautiful  sky-blue,  sea-green,  Ballahulish  slate!  But 
the  summer  is  nearly  over  and  gone,  and  you  must  be 
flitting  back  to  the  city — so  you  let  the  job  stand  over  to 
spring,  and  the  soaking  rains  and  snows  of  a  long  winter 
search  the  cottage  to  its  heart's  core,  and  every  floor  is  ere 
long  laden  with  a  crop  of  fungi — the  bed-posts  are  orna- 
mented curiously  with  lichens,  and  mosses  bathe  the  walls 
with  their  various  and  inimitable  lustre. 

Every  thing  is  romantic  that  is  pastoral — and  what 
more  pastoral  than  sheep  1  Accordingly,  living  in  a  cot- 
tage, you  kill  your  own  mutton.  Great  lubberly  Leices- 
ters  or  South-Downs  are  not  worth  the  mastication,  so  you 
keep  the  small  black-face.  Stone  walls  are  ugly  things, 
you  think,  near  a  cottage,  so  you  have  rails  or  hurdles. 
J3ay  and  night  are  the  small  black-face,  out  of  pure  spite, 
bouncing  through  or  over  all  imjiediments,  after  an  adven- 
turous leader,  and  despising  the  daisied  turf,  keep  nibbling 
away  at  all  your  rare  flowering  shrubs,  till  your  avenue  is 
a  desolation.  Every  twig  has  its  little  hall  of  wool,  and 
it  is  a  rare  time  for  the  nest-makers.  You  purchase  a 
colley,  but  he  compromises  the  affair  with  the  fleecy 
nation,  and  contents  himself  with  barking  all  night  long  at 
the  moon,  if  there  happen  to  be  one,  if  not,  at  the  firma- 
ment of  his  kennel.  You  are  too  humane  to  hang  or 
drown  Luath,  so  you  give  him  to  a  friend.     But  Luath  is 

1 1  * 


126  Wilson's  ^miscellaneous  wkitings. 

in  love  witli  the  cook,  and  pays  her  nightly  visits.  Afraid 
of  being  entrapped,  should  he  step  into  the  kennel,  he 
takes  up  his  station,  after  supper,  on  a  knoll  within  ear- 
range,  and  pointing  his  snout  to  the  stars,  joins  the  music 
of  the  spheres,  and  is  himself  a  perfect  Sirius.  The  gar- 
dener at  last  gets  orders  to  shoot  him — and  the  gun  being 
somewhat  rusty,  bursts  and  blows  off  his  left  hand — so 
that  Andrew  Fairservice  retires  on  a  pension. 

Of  all  breeds  of  cattle  we  most  admire  the  Alderney. 
They  are  slim,  delicate,  wild-deer-looking  creatures,  that 
give  an  air  to  a  cottage.  But  they  arc  most  capricious 
milkers.  Of  course  you  may  make  your  own  butter ; 
that  is  to  say,  with  the  addition  of  seven  or  eight  pur- 
chased pounds  weekly,  you  are  not  very  often  out  of 
that  commodity.  T'hen,  once  or  twice  in  a  summer,  they 
suddenly  lose  their  temper,  and  chase  the  governess  and 
your  daughters  over  the  edge  of  a  gravel-pit.  Nothing 
they  like  so  much  as  the  tender  sprouts  of  cauliflower, 
nor  do  they  abhor  green  pease.  The  garden-hedge  is  of 
privet,  a  pretty  fence,  and  fast  growing,  but  not  formida- 
ble to  a  four-year-old.  On  going  to  eat  a  few  goose- 
berries by  sunrise,  you  start  a  covey  of  cows,  that  in 
their  alarm  plunge  into  the  hot-bed  with  a  smash,  as  if 
all  the  glass  in  the  island  had  been  broken — and  rushing 
out  at  the  gate  at  the  critical  instant  little  Tommy  is  tot- 
tering in,  they  leave  the  heir-apparent,  scarcely  deserving 
that  name,  half  hidden  in  the  border.  There  is  no  sale 
for  such  outlandish  animals  in  the  home-market,  and  it  is 
not  Martinmas,  so  you  must  make  a  present  of  them  to  the 
president  or  five  silver-cup-man  of  an  agricultural  society, 
and  receive,  in  return,  a  sorry  red-round,  desperately  salt- 
petrcd,  at  Christmas. 

What  is  a  cottage  in  the  country,  unless  "  your  banks 
are  all  furnished  with  bees,  whose  murmurs  invite  one  to 
sleep?"  There  the  hives  stand,  like  four-and-twenty  fid- 
dlers all  in  a  row.  Not  a  more  harmless  insect  in  all  this 
world  than  a  bee.  Wasps  are  devils  incarnate,  but  bees 
are  fleshly  sprites,  as  amiable  as  industrious.  You  are 
strolling  along,  in  delightful  mental  vacuity,  looking  at  a 
poem  of  Barry  Cornwall's,  when  smack  comes  an  infuri- 
ated honey. maker  against  your  eye-lid,  and  plunges  into 


COTTAGES.  127 

you  the  fortieth  part  of  an  inch  of  sting  saturated  in 
venom.  The  wretch  clings  to  your  lid  like  a  burr,  and 
it  feels  as  if  he  had  a  million  claws  to  hold  him  on  while 
he  is  darting  his  weapon  into  your  eye-ball.  Your  banks 
are  indeed  well  I'urnished  with  bees,  but  their  murmurs  do 
not  invite  you  to  sleep ;  on  the  contrary,  away  you  fly, 
like  a  madman,  bolt  into  your  wife's  room,  and  roar  out 
for  the  recipe.  The  whole  of  one  side  of  your  face  is 
most  absurdly  swollen,  while  the  other  is  in  statu  quo. 
One  eye  is  dwindled  away  to  almost  nothing,  and  is  peer- 
ing forth  from  its  rainbow-coloured  envelope,  while  the 
other  is  open  as  day  to  melting  charity,  and  shining  over 
a  cheek  of  the  purest  crimson.  Infatuated  man  !  Why 
could  you  not  purchase  your  honey  ?  Jemmy  Thomson, 
the  poet,  would  have  let  you  have  it,  from  Habbie's-Howe, 
the  true  Pentland  elixir,  for  five  shillings  the  pint;  lor 
during  this  season  both  the  heather  and  the  clover  were 
prolific  of  the  honey-dew,  and  the  Skeps  rejoiced  over  all 
Scotland  on  a  thousand  hills. 

We  could  tell  many  stories  about  bees,  but  that  would 
be  leading  us  away  from  the  main  argument.  We  remem- 
ber reading  in  an  American  newspaper,  some  years  ago, 
that  the  United  States  lost  one  of  their  most  upright  and 
erudite  judges  by  bees,  which  stung  him  to  death  in  a 
wood,  while  he  was  going  the  circuit.  About  a  year 
afterwards,  we  read  in  the  same  newspaper,  "  We  are 
afraid  we  have  lost  another  judge  by  bees  ;"  and  then  Ibl- 
lowed  a  somewhat  affright ful  description  of  the  assassina- 
tion of  another  American  Blackstone  by  the  same  insects. 
We  could  not  fail  to  sympathise  with  both  sufierers,  for  in 
the  summer  of  1811  (that  of  the  famous  comet)  we  oiu'- 
selves  had  nearly  shared  the  same  fate.  Our  Newfound- 
lander upset  a  hive  in  his  vagaries — and  the  whole  swarm 
unjustly  attacked  us.  The  buzz  was  an  absolute  roar — 
and  for  the  first  time  in  our  lives  we  were  under  a  cloud. 
Such  bizzing  in  our  hair!  and  of  what  avail  were  fifty- 
times-washed  nankeen  breeches  against  the  Polish  Lan- 
cers'? With  our  trusty  crutch  we  made  thousands  bite 
the  dust — but  the  wounded  and  dying  crawled  up  our 
legs,  and  stung  us  cruelly  over  the  lower  regions.  At 
last  we  took  to  flight,  and  found  shelter  in  the  ice-house. 


128  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

But  it  seemed  as  if  a  new  hive  had  been  disturbed  in  that 
cool  grotto.  Again  we  sallied  out,  stripping  off  garment 
after  garment,  till,  in  jmris  vnturalibi(S,  we  leaped  into  a 
window,  which  happened  to  be  that  of  the  drawing-room, 
where  a  large  party  of  ladies  and  gentlemen  were  await- 
ing the  dinner-bell — but  lancy  must  dream  the  rest. 

We  now  ofl'cr  a  set  of  the  Magazine  to  any  scientific 
clmrncter  who  will  answer  this  seemingly  simple  question 
— what  is  damp?  Quicksilver  is  a  joke  to  it,  for  getting 
into  or  out  of  any  place.  Capricious  as  damp  is,  it  is 
faithful  in  its  aflections  to  all  cottages  ornees.  What  more 
pleasant  than  a  bow-window?  You  had  better,  however, 
not  sit  with  your  back  against  the  wall,  for  it  is  as  blue  and 
ropey  as  that  of  a  charnel-house.  Probably  the  wall  is 
tastily  papered — a  vine-leaf  pattern  perhaps — or  something 
spriggy — or  in  the  aviary  line — or,  mayhap,  hay-makers, 
or  shepherds  piping  in  the  dale.  But  all  distinctions  are 
levelled  in  the  mould — Phyllis  has  a  black  patch  over  her 
eye,  and  Strcphon  seems  to  be  playing  on  a  pair  of  bellows. 
Damp  delights  to  descend  chimneys,  and  is  one  of  smoke's 
most  powerful  auxiliaries.  It  is  a  thousand  pities  you 
hung  up — just  in  that  unlucky  spot — Grecian  William's 
Thebes — for  now  one  of  the  finest  water-coloured  paintings 
in  the  world  is  not  worth  six-and-eightpence.  There  is 
no  living  in  the  country  without  a  library.  Take  down, 
with  all  due  caution,  that  enormous  tome,  the  Excursion, 
and  let  us  hear  something  of  the  pedlar.  There  is  an  end 
to  the  invention  of  printing.  Lo  and  behold,  blank  verse 
indeed  !  You  cannot  help  turning  over  twenty  leaves  at 
once,  for  they  are  all  amalgamated  in  must  and  mouldi- 
riess.  Lord  Byron  himself  is  no  better  than  an  Egyptian 
mummy  ;  and  the  Great  Unknown  addresses  you  in  hiero- 
glyphics. 

We  have  heard  different  opinions  maintained  on  the  sub- 
ject of  damp  sheets.  For  our  own  part,  we  always  wish 
to  feel  the  ditference  between  sheets  and  ccarments.  We 
jiate  every  thing  clammy.  It  is  awkward,  on  leaping  out 
of  bed  to  admire  the  moon,  to  drag  along  with  you,  glued 
round  the  body  and  members,  the  whole  paraphernalia  of 
the  couch.  It  can  never  bo  good  for  rheumatism — pro- 
blematical even  for  fever.     Now,  be  candid — did  you  ever 


COTTAGES.  129 

sleep  in  perfectly  dry  sheets  in  a  cottage  ornee  ?  You 
would  not  like  to  say  "  No,  never,"  in  the  morning — pri- 
vately, to  host  or  hostess.  But  confess  publicly,  and 
trace  your  a})proaching  retirement  from  all  the  troubles 
of  this  life,  to  the  dimity-curtained  cubiculum  on  Tweed- 
side. 

We  know  of  few  events  so  restorative  as  the  arrival  of 
a  coachful  of  one's  friends,  if  the  house  be  roomy.  But  if 
every  thing  there  be  on  a  small  scale,  how  tremendous  a 
sudden  importation  of  live  cattle !  The  children  are  all 
trundled  away  out  of  the  cottage,  and  their  room  given  up 
to  the  young  ladies,  with  all  its  enigmatical  and  emblemati- 
cal wall-tracery.  The  captain  is  billetted  in  the  boudoir, 
on  a  shakedown.  My  lady's  maid  must  positively  pass 
the  night  in  the  butler's  pantry,  and  the  valet  makes  a 
dormitory  of  the  store-room.  Where  the  old  gentleman 
and  his  spouse  have  been  disposed  of,  remains  as  contro- 
versial a  point  as  the  authorship  of  Junius  ;  but  next  morn- 
ing at  the  breakfast-table,  it  appears  that  all  have  survived 
the  night,  and  the  hospitable  hostess  remarks,  with  a  self- 
complacent  smile,  that  small  as  the  cottage  appears,  it  has 
wonderful  accommodation,  and  could  have  easily  admitted 
half  a  dozen  more  patients.  The  visiters  politely  request 
to  be  favoured  with  a  plan  of  so  very  commodious  a  cot- 
tage, but  silently  swear  never  again  to  sleep  in  a  house  of 
one  story,  till  life's  brief  tale  be  told. 

But  not  one  half  the  comforts  of  a  cottage  have  yet  been 
enumerated — nor  shall  they  be  by  us  at  the  present  junc- 
ture. Suffice  it  to  add,  that  the  strange  coachman  had 
been  persuaded  to  put  up  his  horses  in  the  outhouses  in- 
stead of  taking  them  to  an  excellent  inn  about  two  miles 
off.  The  old  black,  long-tailed  steeds,  that  had  dragged 
the  vehicle  for  nearly  twenty  years,  had  been  lodged  in 
what  was  called  the  stable,  and  the  horse  behind  had  been 
introduced  into  the  byre.  As  bad  luck  would  have  it,  a 
small,  sick,  and  surly  shelty  was  in  his  stall ;  and  without 
the  slightest  provocation,  he  had,  during  the  night-watches, 
so  handled  his  heels  against  Mr.  Fox,  that  he  had  not  left 
the  senior  a  leg  to  stand  upon,  while  he  had  bit  a  lump 
out  of  the  buttocks  of  Mr.  Pitt  little  less  than  an  orange. 
A  cow,  afraid  of  her  calf,  had  committed  an  assault  on  the 


130  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings/ 

roadster,  and  tore  up  his  flank  with  her  crooked  horn  as 
clean  as  if  it  had  been  a  ripping  chisel.  The  party  had  to 
proceed  with  post-liorses ;  and  although  Mr.  Gray  beat 
once  one  of  the  most  skilful  and  most  modest  of  veterinary 
surgeons,  his  bill  was  nearly  as  long  as  that  of  a  proctor. 
Mr.  Fox  gave  up  the  ghost — Mr.  Pitt  was  put  on  the  super- 
annuated list — and  Joseph  Ilume,  the  hack,  was  sent  to 
the  dogs. 

To  this  condition  then  we  must  come  at  last,  that  if  you 
build  at  all  in  the  country,  it  must  be  a  mansion  three 
stories  high,  at  the  lowest — large  airy  rooms — roof  of 
slates  and  load — and  walls  of  the  free-stone  or  the  Roman 
cement.  No  small  black-faces,  no  Alderneys,  no  bee- 
hives. Buy  all  your  vivers,  and  live  like  a  gentleman. 
Seldom  or  never  be  without  a  houseful  of  company.  If 
you  manage  your  family  matters  properly,  you  may  have 
your  time  nearly  as  much  at  your  own  disposal^  as  if  you 
were  the  greatest  of  hunkses,  and  never  gave  but  unavoid- 
able dinners.  Let  the  breakfast-gong  sound  at  ten  o'clock 
— quite  soon  enough.  The  young  people  will  have  been 
romping  about  the  parlours  or  the  purlieus  for  a  couple  of 
hours — and  will  all  make  their  appearance  in  the  beauty 
of  high  health  and  high  spirits.  Chat  away  as  long  as 
need  be,  after  muffins  and  mutton-ham,  in  small  groups  on 
sofas  and  settees — and  then  slip  you  away  to  your  library, 
to  add  a  chapter  to  your  novel,  or  your  history,  or  to  any 
other  task  that  is  to  make  you  immortal.  Let  gigs  and 
curricles  draw  up  in  the  circle,  and  the  wooing  and  be- 
trothed wheel  away  across  a  few  parishes.  Let  the  pedes- 
trians saunter  off  into  the  woods  or  to  the  hill-side — the 
anglers  be  off  to  loch  or  river.  No  great  harm  even  in  a 
game  or  two  at  billiards — if  such  be  of  any  the  cue — saga- 
cious spinsters  of  a  certain  age,  staid  dowagers,  and 
bachelors  of  sedentary  habits,  may  have  recourse,  without 
blame,  to  the  chess  or  backgammon  board.  At  two  the 
lunch — and  at  six  the  dinner-gong  will  bring  the  whole 
flock  together,  all  dressed — mind  that — all  dressed,  for 
slovenliness  is  an  abomination.  Let  no  elderly  gentleman, 
however  bilious  and  rich,  seek  to  monopolize  a  young 
lady — but  study  the  nature  of  things.  Champaigne,  of 
course,  and  if  not  all  the  delicacies,  at  least  all  the  sub- 


COTTAGES,  131 

stantialitics,  of  the  season.  Join  the  ladies  in  about  two 
hours — a  little  elevated  or  so — almost  imperceptibly — but 
still  a  little  elevated  or  so — then  music — whispering  in 
corners — if  moonlight  and  stars,  then  an  hour's  out-of-door 
study  of  astronomy — no  very  regular  supper — but  an  ap- 
pearance of  plates  and  tumblers,  and  to  bed,  to  happy 
dreams  and  slumbers  light,  at  the  witching  hour.  Let  no 
gentleman  or  lady  snore,  if  it  can  be  avoided,  lest  they 
annoy  the  crickets ;  and  if  you  hear  any  extraordinary 
noise  round  and  round  about  the  mansion,  be  not  alarmed, 
for  why  should  not  the  owls  choose  their  hour  of  revelry? 

Fond  as  we  are  of  the  country,  we  would  not,  had  we 
our  option,  live  there  all  the  year  round.  We  should  just 
wish  to  linger  into  the  winter  about  as  far  as  the  middle 
of  December — then  to  a  city — say  at  once  Edinburgh. 
There  is  as  good  skating-ground,  and  as  good  curling- 
ground,  at  Lochend  and  Duddingstone,  as  any  wherein  all 
Scotland — nor  is  there  any  where  else  better  beef  and 
greens.  There  is  no  perfection  any  where,  but  Edinburgh 
society  is  excellent.  We  are  certainly  agreeable  citizens  ; 
with  just  a  sufficient  spice  of  party  spirit  to  season  the 
feast  of  reason  and  the  flow  of  soul,  and  to  prevent  society 
from  becoming  drowsily  unanimous.  Without  the  fillup 
of  a  little  scandal,  honest  people  would  fall  asleep;  and 
surely  it  is  far  preferable  to  that  to  abuse  one's  friends 
with  moderation.  Even  literature  and  belles  letters  are 
not  entirely  useless  ;  and  our  human  life  would  be  as  dull 
as  that  of  Mr.  Rogers,  without  a  few  occasional  Noctes 
Ambrosianfe. 

But  the  title  of  our  article  recalls  our  wandering  thoughts, 
and  our  talk  must  be  of  cottages.  Now  think  not,  beloved 
reader,  that  we  care  not  for  cottages,  for  that  would  indeed 
be  a  gross  mistake.  But  our  very  affections  are  philoso- 
phical ;  our  sympathies  have  all  their  source  in  reason  ;  and 
our  admiration  is  always  built  on  the  foundation  of  truth. 
Taste,  and  feeling,  and  thought,  and  experience,  and 
knowledge  of  this  life's  concerns,  are  all  indispensable  to 
the  true  delights  the  imagination  experiences  in  beholding 
a  beautiful  bo?ia  fide  cottage.  It  must  be  the  dwelling  of 
the  poor ;  and  it  is  that  which  gives  it  its  whole  character. 
By  the  poor,  we  mean  not  pauprrs,  beggars;  but  families 


132  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

who  to  eat,  must  woi'k,  and  who,  by  working,  may  still  be 
able  to  eat.  Plain,  coarse,  not  scanty,  but  unsupcrfluous 
fare  is  theirs  from  year's-end  to  year's-end,  excepting 
some  decent  and  grateful  change  on  chance  holidays  of 
nature's  own  appointment,  a  wedding,  a  christening,  or  a 
funeral.  Yes,  a  funeral  ;  for  when  this  mortal  coil  has 
been  shufTled  off,  why  should  the  hundreds  of  people  that 
come  trooping  over  muirs  and  mosses  to  see  the  body 
deposited,  walk  so  many  miles  and  lose  a  whole  day's 
work,  without  a  dinner?  And,  if  there  be  a  dinner,  should 
it  not  be  a  good  one  1  And  if  a  good  one,  will  the  company 
not  be  social  ?  But  this  is  a  subject  for  a  future  article, 
nor  need  such  article  be  of  other  than  of  a  cheerful  cha- 
racter. Poverty  is  then  the  builder  and  beautifier  of  all 
huts  and  cottages.  But  the  views  of  honest  poverty  are 
always  hopeful  and  prospective.  Strength  of  muscle  and 
strength  of  mind  form  a  truly  Holy  Alliance  ;  and  the  future 
brightens  before  the  steadfast  eyes  of  contentment.  There- 
fore, when  a  house  is  built  in  the  valley,  or  on  the  hillside, 
— be  it  that  of  the  poorest  cottar, — there  is  some  little 
room,  or  nook,  or  spare  place,  which  hope  consecrates 
to  the  future.  Better  times  may  come, — a  shilling  or  two 
may  be  added  to  the  week's  wages, — parsimony  may  ac- 
cumulate a  small  capital  in  the  savings  bank  sufficient  to 
purchase  an  old  eight-day  clock,  a  chest  of  drawers  for  the 
wife,  a  curtained  bed  for  the  lumber  place,  which  a  little 
labour  will  convert  into  a  bed-room.  It  is  not  to  be 
thought  that  the  pasture-fields  become  every  year  greener, 
and  the  corn-fields  every  harvest  more  yellow, — that  the 
hedgerows  grow  to  thicker  fragrance,  and  the  birch  tree 
waves  its  tresses  higher  in  the  air,  and  expands  its  white- 
rincd  stem  almost  to  the  bulk  of  a  tree  of  the  forest, — and 
yet  that  there  shall  be  no  visible  progress  from  good  to 
better  in  the  duellings  of  those  whose  hands  and  hearts 
thus  cultivate  the  soil  into  rejoicing  beauty.  As  the 
whole  land  prospers,  so  does  each  individual  dwelling. 
Every  ten  years,  the  observing  eye  sees  a  new  expres- 
sion on  the  face  of  the  silent  earth  ;  the  law  of  labour  is 
no  melancholy  lot;  for  to  industry  the  yoke  is  easy,  and 
content  is  its  own  exceeding  great  reward. 

Therefore,  it  does  our  heart  "ood  to  look  on  a  cottage. 


COTTAGES.  133 

Here  the  objections  to  straw-roofs  have  no  application.  A 
few  sparrows  chirping  and  fluttering  in  the  eaves  can  do 
no  great  harm,  and  they  serve  to  amuse  the  children.  The 
very  baby  in  the  cradle,  when  all  the  family  are  in  the 
fields,  mother  and  all,  hears  the  cheerful  twitter,  and  is 
reconciled  to  solitude.  The  quantity  of  corn  that  a  kw 
sparrows  can  eat, — greedy  creatures  as  they  are, — cannot 
be  very  deadly ;  and  it  is  chiefly  in  the  winter  time  that 
they  attack  the  stacks,  when  there  is  much  excuse  to  be 
made  on  the  plea  of  hunger.  As  to  the  destruction  of  a 
little  thatch,  why,  there  is  not  a  boy  about  the  house, 
above  ten  years,  who  is  not  a  thatcher,  and  there  is  no 
expense  in  such  repairs.  Let  the  honey-suckle  too  steal 
up  the  wall,  and  even  blind  unchecked  a  corner  of  the 
kitchen-window.  Its  fragrance  will  often  cheer  uncon- 
sciously the  labourer's  heart,  as,  in  the  midday  hour  of 
rest,  he  sits  dandling  his  child  on  his  knee,  or  converses 
with  the  passing  pedlar.  Let  the  moss-rose-tree  flourish, 
that  its  bright  blush-balls  may  dazzle  in  the  kirk  the  eyes 
of  the  lover  of  fair  Helen  Irwin,  as  they  rise  and  fall  with 
every  movement  of  a  bosom  yet  happy  in  its  virgin  inno- 
cence. Nature  does  not  spread  in  vain  her  flowers  in  flush 
and  fragrance  over  every  obscure  nook  of  earth.  Simple 
and  pure  is  the  delight  they  inspire.  Not  to  the  poet's 
eye  alone  is  the  language  of  flowers  addressed.  Those 
beautiful  symbols  are  understood  by  lowliest  minds ;  and 
while  the  philosophical  Wordsworth  speaks  of  the  meanest 
flower  that  blows  giving  a  joy  too  deep  for  tears,  so  do 
all  mankind  feel  the  exquisite  truth  of  Burns's  more  simple 
address  to  the  mountain-daisy,  which  his  ploughshare  had 
upturned.  The  one  touches  sympathies  too  profound  to 
be  general — the  other  speaks  as  a  son  of  the  soil  afl^ected 
by  the  fate  of  the  very  senseless  flowers  that  spring  from 
the  bosom  of  our  common  dust. 

Generally  speaking,  there  has  been  a  spirit  of  improve- 
ment at  work,  during  these  last  twenty  years,  upon  all  the 
cottages  in  Scotland.  The  villages  are  certainly  much 
neater  and  cleaner  than  formerly,  and  in  very  few  respects, 
if  any,  positively  offensive.  Perhaps  none  of  them  have, — 
nor  ever  will  have,  the  exquisite  trimness,  the  long  habitual 
and   hereditary  rustic  elegance,  of  the  best  villages  of 

vol..  I.  12 


134  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

England.  There,  even  the  idle  and  worthless  have  an  in- 
stinctive love  of  what  is  decent,  and  orderly,  and  pretty  in 
their  habitations.  The  very  drunkard  must  have  a  well- 
sandcd  floor,  a  clean-swept  hearth,  clear-polished  furni- 
ture, and  uncobvvebbed  walls  to  the  room  in  which  he 
quaffs,  guzzles,  and  smokes  himself  into  stupidity.  His 
wife  may  be  a  scold,  but  seldom  a  slattern, — his  children 
ill  taught,  but  well  apparelled.  Much  of  this  is  observable 
even  among  the  worst  of  the  class ;  and,  no  doubt,  such 
things  must  also  have  their  effect  in  tempering  and  restrain- 
ing excesses.  Whereas,  on  the  other  hand,  the  house  of  a 
well-behaved,  well-doing  English  villager  is  a  perfect 
model  of  comfort  and  propriety.  In  Scotland,  the  houses 
of  the  dissolute  are  always  dens  of  dirt,  and  disorder,  and 
distraction.  All  ordinary  goings-on  are  inextricably  con- 
fused,— meals  eaten  in  different  nooks,  and  at  no  regular 
hour, — nothing  in  its  right  place  or  time, — the  whole 
abode  as  if  on  the  eve  of  a  flitting  ;  while,  with  few  excep- 
tions, even  in  the  dwellings  of  the  best  families  in  the  vil- 
lage, one  may  detect  occasional  forgetfulness  of  trifling 
matters,  that,  if  remembered,  would  be  found  greatly  con- 
ducive to  comfort, — occasional  insensibilities  to  what 
would  be  graceful  to  their  condition,  and  might  be  secured 
at  little  expense  and  less  trouble, — occasional  blindness  to 
minute  deformities  that  mar  the  aspect  of  the  household, 
and  which  an  awakened  eye  would  sweep  away  as  abso- 
lute nuisances.  Perhaps  the  very  depth  of  their  affections, 
— the  solemnity  of  their  religious  thoughts, — and  the  re- 
flective spirit  in  which  they  carry  on  the  warfare  of  life, 
hide  from  them  the  perception  of  what,  after  all,  is  of  such 
very  inferior  moment,  and  even  create  a  sort  of  austerity 
of  character  which  makes  them  disregard,  too  much,  tri- 
fles that  appear  to  have  no  influence  or  connexion  with  the 
essence  of  weal  or  wo.  But  if  there  be  any  truth  in  this, 
it  affords  an  explanation  rather  than  a  justification. 

Our  business  at  present,  however,  is  rather  with  single 
cottages  than  with  villages,  which  of  course  will  be  the 
subject  of  a  future  leading  article.  We  Scotch  people 
have,  for  some  years  past,  been  doing  all  we  could  to 
make  ourselves  ridiculous,  by  claiming  for  our  capital  the 
name  of  Modern  Athens,  and  talking  all  manner  of  non- 


COTTAGES.  135 

sense  about  a  city  which  stands  nobly  on  its  own  proper 
foundation,  while  we  have  kept  our  mouths  shut  about  the 
beauty  of  our  hills  and  vales,  and  the  rational  happiness 
that  every  where  overflows  our  native  land.  Our  character 
is  to  be  found  in  the  country  ;  and,  therefore,  gentle  reader, 
behold  along  with  us  a  small  Scottish  glen.  It  is  not  above 
a  mile,  or  a  mile  and  a  half  long, — its  breadth  somewhere 
about  a  fourth  of  its  length  ;  a  fair  oblong,  sheltered  and 
secluded  by  a  line  of  varied  eminences,  on  some  of  which 
lies  the  power  of  cultivation,  and  over  others  the  vivid  ver- 
dure peculiar  to  a  pastoral  region  ;  while,  telling  of  dis- 
turbed times  past  for  ever,  stand  yonder  the  ruins  of  an 
old  fortalice,  or  keep,  picturesque  in  its  deserted  decay. 
The  plough  has  stopped  at  the  edge  of  the  profitable  and 
beautiful  coppice-woods,  or  encircled  the  tall  elm-grove. 
The  rocky  pasturage,  with  its  clovery  and  daisied  turf,  is 
alive  with  sheep  and  cattle, — its  briary  knolls  with  birds, 
— its  broom  and  whins  with  bees, — and  its  wimpling  burn 
with  trouts  and  minnows  glancing  through  the  shallows, 
or  leaping  among  the  cloud  of  insects  that  glitter  over  its 
pools.  Here  and  there  a  cottage, — not  above  half  a  dozen 
in  all, — one  low  down  in  the  holm,  another  on  a  clifl'  be- 
side the  waterfall, — that  is  the  mill, — another  breaking  the 
horizon  in  its  more  ambitious  station, — and  another  far  up 
at  the  hill-foot,  where  there  is  not  a  single  tree,  only  shrubs 
and  brackens.  On  a  bleak  day,  there  is  but  little  beauty 
in  such  a  glen ;  but  when  the  sun  is  cloudless,  and  all  the 
light  serene,  it  is  a  place  where  poet  or  painter  may  see 
visions,  and  dream  dreams,  of  the  very  age  of  gold.  At 
such  seasons,  there  is  a  homefelt  feeling  of  humble  reality, 
blending  with  the  emotions  of  imagination.  In  such  places, 
the  low-born,  high-souled  poets  of  old  breathed  forth  their 
songs,  and  hymns,  and  elegies, — the  undying  lyrical  poetry 
of  the  heart  of  Scotland. 

Take  the  remotest  cottage  first  in  order.  Hill-foot, 
and  hear  who  arc  its  inmates — the  schoolmaster  and  his 
spouse.  The  schoolhouse  stands  on  a  little  unappropriated 
piece  of  ground — at  least  it  seems  to  be  so — quite  at  the 
head  of  the  glen — for  there  the  hills  sink  down,  on  each 
side,  and  afford  an  easy  access  to  the  seat  of  learning  from 
two  neighbouring  vales,  both  in  the  same  parish.     Perhaps 


13G  avilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

thirty  scholars  are  there  taught — and  with  their  small  fees, 
and  his  small  salary,  Allan  Easton  is  contented.  Allan 
was  originally  intended  lor  the  church,  but  some  peccadil- 
loes obstructed  his  progress  with  the  presbytery,  and  he 
never  was  a  preacher.  That  disappointment  of  all  his 
hopes  was  for  many  years  grievously  felt,  and  somewhat 
soured  his  mind  with  the  world.  It  is  often  impossible  to 
recover  one  single  false  step  in  the  slippery  road  of  life — 
and  Allan  Easton,  year  after  year,  saw  himself  falling  far- 
ther and  farther  into  the  rear  of  almost  all  his  contempo- 
raries. One  became  a  minister,  and  got  a  manse,  with  a 
stipend  of  thirty  chalders  ;  another  grew  into  an  East  India 
nabob ;  one  married  the  laird's  widow,  and  kept  a  pack  of 
hounds — another  expanded  into  a  colonel — one  cleared  a 
plum  by  a  cotton-mill — another  became  the  Croesus  of  a 
bank — while  Allan,  who  had  beat  them  all  hollow  at  all 
the  classes,  wore  second-hand  clothes,  and  lived  on  the 
same  fare  with  the  poorest  hind  in  the  parish.  He  had 
married,  rather  too  late,  the  partner  of  his  frailties — and 
after  many  trials,  and,  as  he  thought,  not  a  (tiw  persecu- 
tions, he  got  settled  at  last,  when  his  head,  not  very  old, 
was  getting  gray,  and  his  face  somewhat  wrinkled.  His 
wife,  during  his  worst  poverty,  had  gone  again  into  ser- 
vice, the  lot,  indeed,  to  which  she  had  been  born;  and 
Allan  had  struggled  and  starved  upon  private  teaching. 
His  appointment  to  the  parish-school  had,  therefore,  been 
to  them  both  a  blessed  elevation.  The  office  was  respect- 
able— and  loftier  ambition  had  long  been  dead.  Now  they 
are  old  people — considerably  upwards  of  sixty — and  twenty 
years'  professional  life  have  converted  Allan  Easton,  once 
the  wild  and  eccentric  genius,  into  a  staid,  solemn,  formal, 
and  pedantic  pedagogue.  All  his  scholars  love  him,  for 
even  in  the  discharge  of  such  very  humble  duties,  talents 
make  themselves  felt  and  respected  ;  and  the  kindness  of 
an  affectionate  and  once  sorely  wounded,  but  now  healed 
heart,  is  never  lost  upon  the  susceptible  imaginations  of  the 
young.  Allan  has  somettmes  sent  out  no  contemptible 
scholars,  as  scholars  go  in  Scotland,  to  the  universities ; 
and  his  heart  has  warmed  within  him  when  he  has  read 
their  names,  in  the  newspaper  from  the  manse,  in  the  list 
of  successful  competitors  for    prizes.     During  vacation- 


COTTAGES.  137 

time,  Allan  and  his  spouse  leave  their  cottage  locked  up, 
and  disappear,  none  know  exactly  whither,  on  visits  to  an 
old  friend  or  two,  who  have  not  altogether  forgotten  them 
in  their  poverty.  During  the  rest  of  the  year,  his  only 
out-of-doors  amusement  is  an  afternoon's  angling,  an  art 
in  which  it  is  universally  allowed  he  excels  all  mortal  men, 
both  in  river  and  loch  ;  and  often,  during  the  long  winter 
nights,  when  the  shepherd  is  walking  by  his  dwelling,  to 
visit  his  "ain  lassie,"  down  the  burn,  he  hears  Allan's 
fiddle  playing,  in  the  solitary  silence,  some  one  of  those 
Scottish  melodies,  that  we  know  not  whether  it  be  cheerful 
or  plaintive,  but  soothing  to  every  heart  that  has  been  at 
all  acquainted  with  grief.  Rumour  says  too,  but  rumour 
has  not  a  scrupulous  conscience,  that  the  schoolmaster, 
when  he  meets  with  pleasant  company,  either  at  home  or  a 
friend's  house,  is  not  averse  to  a  hospitable  cup,  and  that 
then  the  memories  of  other  days  crowd  upon  his  brain,  and 
loosen  his  tongue  into  eloquence.  Old  Susan  keeps  a 
sharp  warning  eye  upon  her  husband  on  all  such  occa- 
sions ;  but  Allan  braves  its  glances,  and  is  forgiven. 

We  see  only  the  uncertain  glimmer  of  their  dwelling 
through  the  low-lying  mist  :  and  therefore  we  cannot  de- 
scribe it,  as  if  it  were  clearly  before  our  eyes.  But  should 
you  ever  chance  to  angle  your  way  up  to  Hill-foot,  ad- 
mire Allan  Easton's  flower-garden,  and  the  jargonel  pear- 
tree  on  the  southern  gable.  The  climate  is  somewhat 
high,  but-it  is  not  cold;  and  except  when  the  spring-frosts 
come  late  and  sharp,  there  do  all  blossoms  and  fruits 
abound,  on  every  shrub  and  tree  native  to  Scotland.  You 
will  hardly  know  how  to  distinguish — or  rather,  to  speak 
in  clerkly  phrase,  to  analyse  the  sound  prevalent  over  the 
fields  and  air,  for  it  is  made  up  of  that  of  the  burn,  of  bees, 
of  old  Susan's  wheel,  and  the  hum  of  the  busy  school  ! 
But  now  it  is  the  play-hour,  and  Allan  Easton  comes  into 
his  kitchen  for  his  frugal  dinner.  Brush  up  your  Latin, 
and  out  with  a  few  of  the  largest  trouts  in  your  pannier. 
Susan  fries  them  in  fresh  butter  and  oat-meal — the  gray- 
haired  pedagogue  asks  a  blessing — and  a  merrier  man, 
within  the  limits  of  becoming  mirth,  you  never  passed  an 
hour's  talk  withal.  So  much  for  Allan  Easton  and  Susan 
his  spouse. 

12* 


133  Wilson's  miscellaneous  mkitings. 

You  look  as  if  vou  wished  to  ask,  who  inhabits  the  cot- 
tage— on  the  left  hand  yonder — that  stares  upon  us  with 
four  front  windows,  and  pricks  up  its  ears  like  a  new  started 
hare.  Why,  sir,  that  was  once  a  shooting-box.  It  was 
built  about  twenty  years  ago,  by  a  sporting  gentleman,  of 
two  excellent  double-barrelled  guns,  and  three  staunch 
pointers.  He  attempted  to  live  there,  several  times,  from 
the  12th  of  August  till  the  end  of  September,  and  went 
pluffing  disconsolately  among  the  hills,  from  sunrise  to 
sunset.  He  has  been  long  married  and  dead  ;  and  the 
box,  they  say,  is  now  haunted.  It  has  been  attempted  to 
be  let  furnished,  and  there  is  now  a  board  to  that  elTect 
hung  out  like  an  escutcheon.  Picturesque  people  say,  it 
ruins  the  whole  beauty  of  the  glen  ;  but  we  must  not  think 
so,  for  it  is  not  in  the  power  of  the  ugliest  house  that  ever 
was  built  to  do  that,  although,  to  effect  such  a  purpose,  it 
is  unquestionably  a  skilful  contrivance.  The  window- 
shutters  have  been  closed  for  many  years,  and  the  chim- 
neys look  as  if  they  had  breathed  their  last.  It  stands  in 
a  perpetual  eddy,  and  the  ground  shelves  so  all  around  it, 
that  there  is  barely  room  for  a  barrel  to  catch  the  rain- 
drippings  from  the  slate-eaves.  If  it  be  indeed  haunted, 
pity  the  poor  ghost.  You  may  have  it  on  a  lease  of  seven 
years,  for  merely  paying  the  taxes.  Every  year  it  costs 
several  i)Ounds  in  advertisements.  What  a  jointure-house 
it  would  be  for  a  relict!     By  name,  Windy-knowk. 

Let  us  descend,  then,  from  that  most  inclement  front, 
into  the  lown  boundaries  of  the  Holm.  The  farm-stead- 
ing covers  a  goodly  portion  of  the  peninsula  shaped  by  the 
burn,  that  here  looks  almost  like  a  river.  With  its  out- 
houses it  forms  three  sides  of  a  square,  and  the  fourth  is 
composed  of  a  set  of  jolly  stacks,  that  will  keep  the  thrash- 
ing-machine at  work  during  all  the  winter.  The  interior 
of  the  square  rejoices  in  a  glorious  diuighill,  (O  breathe 
not  the  name,)  that  will  cover  every  field  with  luxuriant 
harvests — fifteen  bolls  of  wheat  to  the  acre.  There  the 
cattle — oxen  yet  "  lean,  and  lank,  and  brown  as  is  the  rib- 
bed sea-sand,"  will,  in  a  few  months,  eat  themselves  up, 
on  straw  and  turnip,  into  obesity.  There  turkeys  walk 
demure — there  geese  waddle,  and  there  the  feathery -legged 
king  of  IJantam  struts  among  his  seraglio,  keeping  pertly 


COTTAGES.  139 

aloof  from  double-combed  Chanticleer,  that  squire  of  dames, 
crowing  to  his  partlets.  There  a  cloud  of  pigeons  often 
descends  among  the  corny  chaff,  and  then  whirrs  off  to  the 
uplands.  No  chained  mastift'  looking  grimly  from  the 
kennel's  mouth,  but  a  set  of  cheerful  and  sagacious  colleys 
are  seen  sitting  on  their  hurdles,  or  "  worrying  ither  in  di- 
version." A  shaggy  colt  or  two,  and  a  brood  mare,  with 
a  spice  of  blood,  and  a  foal  at  her  heels,  know  their  shed, 
and  evidently  are  favourites  with  the  family.  Out  comes 
the  master,  a  rosy-cheeked  carl,  upwards  of  six  feet  high, 
broad-shouldered,  with  a  blue  bonnet  and  velveteen  breeches, 
a  man  not  to  be  jostled  on  the  crown  o'  the  causeway,  and 
a  match  for  any  horse-couper  from  Bewcastle,  or  gipsy 
from  Yetholm.  But  let  us  into  the  kitchen.  There's  the 
wife — a  bit  tidy  body — and  pretty  withal — more  authori- 
tative in  her  quiet  demeanour,  than  the  most  tyrannical 
mere  housekeeper  that  ever  thumped  a  servant  lass  with 
the  beetle.  These  three  are  her  daughters.  First,  Girzie, 
the  eldest — seemingly  older  than  her  mother,  for  she  is 
somewhat  hard-favoured,  and  strong  red  hair  dangling 
over  a  squint  eye,  is  apt  to  give  an  expression  of  advanced 
years,  even  to  a  youthful  virgin.  Vaccination  was  not 
known  in  Girzie's  babyhood,  but  she  is,  nevertheless,  a 
clean-skinned  creature,  and  her  full  bosom  is  white  as 
snow.  She  is  what  is  delicately  called  a  strapper,  rosy- 
armed  as  the  morning,  and  not  a  little  of  an  Aurora  about 
the  feet  and  ancles.  She  makes  her  way,  in  all  house- 
hold affairs,  through  every  impediment,  and  will  obviously 
prove,  whenever  the  experiment  is  made,  a  most  excellent 
wife.  Mysie,  the  second  daughter,  is  more  composed, 
more  genteel,  and  sits  sewing,  with  her  a  favourite  occu- 
pation, for  she  has  very  neat  hands;  and  is,  in  fact,  the 
milliner  and  mantua-maker  for  all  the  house.  She  could 
no  more  lift  that  enormous  pan  of  boiling  water  off  the 
fire,  than  she  could  fly,  which  in  the  grasp  of  Girzie,  is 
safely  landed  on  the  hearth.  Mysie  has  somewhat  of  a 
pensive  look,  as  if  in  love — and  we  liave  heard  that  she 
is  betrothed  to  young  Mr.  Rentoul,  the  divinity  student, 
who  lately  made  a  speech  before  the  Anti-patronage  So- 
ciety, and  therefore  may  reasonably  expect  very  soon  to  get 
a  kirk.     But  look — there  comes  dancing  in  from  the  ewe 


140  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

bughts,  tlic  bright-eyed  Bessy,  the  flovvei'  of  the  flock,  the 
most  beautiful  girl  in  Almondale,  and  fit  to  be  bosom-burd 
of  the  gentle  shepherd  himself!  O  that  we  were  a  poet, 
to  sing  the  innocence  of  her  budding  breast!  But — hea- 
ven  preserve  us — what  is  the  angelic  creature  about  ? 
Making  runiblc-de-thumps  !  Now  she  bruises  the  pota- 
toes and  cabbages  as  with  pestle  and  mortar  !  Ever  and 
anon  licking  the  butter  oil' her  lingers,  and  then  dasliing  in 
the  salt !  Methinks  her  laugh  is  out  of  all  bounds  loud — 
and  unless  my  eyes  deceived  me,  that  stout  lout  whispered 
in  her  delicate  ear  some  coarse  jest,  that  made  the  eloquent 
blood  mount  up  into  her  not  undelightcd  countenance. 
Heavens  and  earth  ! —  perhaps  an  assignation  in  the  barn,  or 
byre,  or  bush  aboon  Traquair.  But  the  long  dresser  is  set 
out  with  dinner — the  gudeman's  bonnet  is  reverently  laid 
aside — and  if  any  stomach  assembled  there  be  now  empty, 
it  is  not  likely,  judging  from  appearances,  that  it  will  be 
in  that  state  again  before  next  Sabbath — and  it  is  now  but 
the  middle  of  the  week.  Was  it  not  my  Lord  Byron  who 
liked  not  to  see  women  eat?  Poo — poo — nonsense.  We 
like  to  see  them  not  only  cat — but  devour.  Not  a  set  of 
teeth  round  that  kitchen-dresser,  that  is  not  white  as  the 
driven  snow.  Breath  too  (bating  onions)  sweet  as  dawn's 
dew — the  whole  female  frame  full  of  health,  freshness, 
spirit,  and  animation  !  Away  all  delicate  wooers,  thrice 
high-fantastical  !  The  diet  is  wholesome — and  the  sleep 
will  be  sound — therefore  eat  away,  Bessy — nor  fear  to 
laugh,  although  your  pretty  mouth  be  full — for  we  arc  no 
])oet,  to  madden  into  misanthropy  at  your  mastication;  and, 
in  spite  of  the  lieartiest  meal  ever  virgin  ate,  to  us  these 
lips  are  roses  still,  "  thy  eyes  are  lode-stars,  and  thy  breath 
sweet  air."  Would  for  thy  sake  we  had  been  born  a 
shepherd-groom!  No — no — no!  For  some  ihw  joyous 
years  mayest  thou  wear  thy  silken  snood  unharmed,  and 
silence  with  thy  songs  the  linnet  among  the  broom,  at  the 
sweet  hour  of  prime.  And  then  mayest  thou  plight  thy 
troth — in  all  the  warmth  of  innocence — to  some  ardent, 
yet  thoughtful  youth,  who  will  carry  his  bride  exultingly 
to  his  own  low-roofed  home — toil  for  her  and  the  children 
at  her  knees,  through  summer's  heat  and  winter's  cold — 
and  sit  with  her,  in  the  kirk,  when  long  years  have  gone 


COTTAGES.  141 

by,  a  comely  matron,  attended  by  daughters  acknowledged 
to  be  fair — but  neither  so  fair,  nor  so  good,  nor  so  pious, 
as  their  mother. 

What  a  contrast  to  the  jocund  Holm — is  the  Rowan- 
Tree  Hut — so  still,  and  seemingly  so  desolate!  It  is 
close  upon  the  public  road,  and  yet  so  low,  that  you  might 
pass  it  without  observing  its  turf-roof.  There  live  old 
Aggy  Robinson,  the  carrier,  and  her  consumptive  daugh- 
ter. Old  Aggy  has  borne  that  epithet  for  twenty  years, 
and  her  daughter  is  not  under  sixty.  That  poor  creature 
is  bed-ridden  and  helpless,  and  has  to  be  fed  almost  like  a 
child.  Old  Aggy  has  for  many  years  had  the  same  white 
pony — well  named  Sampson — that  she  drives  three  times 
a-week,  all  the  year  round,  to  and  from  the  nearest 
market-town,  carrying  all  sorts  of  articles  to  nearly 
twenty  different  families,  living  miles  apart.  Every  other 
day  in  the  week — for  there  is  but  one  Sabbath  either  to 
herself  or  Sampson — she  drives  coals,  or  peat,  or  wood, 
or  lime,  or  stones  for  the  roads.  She  is  clothed  in  a 
man's  coat,  an  old  rusty  beaver,  and  a  red  petticoat. 
Aggy  never  was  a  beauty,  and  now  she  is  almost  fright- 
ful, with  a  formidable  beard,  and  a  rough  voice — and  vio- 
lent gestures,  encouraging  the  overladen  enemy  of  the 
Philistines.  But  the  poor  creature,  as  soon  as  she  enters 
her  hut,  is  silent,  patient,  and  affectionate,  at  her  daugh- 
ter's bed-side.  They  sleep  on  the  same  chaff-mattress, 
and  she  hears,  during  the  dead  of  night,  her  daughter's 
slightest  moan.  Her  voice  is  not  rough  at  all,  when  the 
poor  old  creature  says  her  solitary  prayers;  nor,  we  may 
be  well  assured,  is  one  single  whisper  unheard  in  heaven. 

Your  eyes  are  wandering  away  to  the  eastern  side  of 
the  vale,  and  they  have  fixed  themselves  on  the  cottage  of 
the  Seven  Oaks.  The  grove  is  a  noble  one ;  and,  indeed, 
these  are  the  only  timber-trees  in  the  valley.  There  is  a 
tradition  belonging  to  the  grove,  but  we  shall  tell  it  some 
other  time ;  now,  we  have  to  do  with  thai  mean-looking 
cottage,  all  unworthy  of  such  magnificent  shelter.  It  is 
slated,  and  has  a  cold  cheerless  look, — almost  a  look  of 
indigence.  The  walls  are  sordid  in  the  streaked  white- 
wash,— a  wisp  of  straw  supplies  the  place  of  a  broken 
pane, — the  door  seems  as  if  it  were  inhospitable, — and 


142  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

every  object  about  it  is  in  untended  disorder.  The  green 
pool  in  front,  with  its  floating  straws  and  feathers,  and 
miry  edge,  is  at  once  unheahhy  and  needless;  the  hedge- 
rows are  full  of  gaps,  and  open  at  the  roots ;  the  few  gar- 
ments spread  upon  them  seem  to  have  stiffened  in  the 
weather,  forgotten  by  the  person  who  placed  them  there; 
and  half-starved  young  cattle  are  straying  about  in  what 
was  once  a  garden.  Wretched  sight  it  is;  for  that  dwell- 
ing, although  never  beautiful,  was  once  the  tidiest  and  best 
kept  in  all  the  cflstrict.  But  what  has  misery  to  do  with 
the  comfort  of  its  habitation  ] 

The  owner  of  that  house  was  once  a  man  well  to  do  in 
the  world  ;  but  he  minded  this  world's  goods  more  than 
was  fitting  to  do,  and  made  mammon  his  god.  Abilities 
he  possessed  far  beyond  that  of  the  common  run  of  men, 
and  he  applied  them  all,  with  all  the  energy  of  a  strong 
mind,  to  the  accumulation  of  wealth.  Every  rule  of  his 
life  had  that  for  its  ultimate  end  ;  and  he  despised  a  bar- 
gain unless  he  outwitted  his  neighbour.  Without  any  act 
of  downright  knavery,  he  was  not  an  honest  man — hard 
to  the  poor — and  a  tyrannical  master.  He  sought  to 
wring  from  the  very  soil  more  than  it  could  produce;  his 
servants,  among  whom  were  his  wife  and  daughter,  he 
kept  at  work,  like  slaves,  from  twilight  to  twilight;  and 
was  a  forcstaller  and  a  regrater — a  character  which,  when 
political  economy  was  unknown,  was  of  all  the  most 
odious  in  the  judgment  of  simple  husbandmen.  His  spirits 
rose  with  the  price  of  meal,  and  every  handful  dealt  out 
to  the  beggar  was  paid  like  a  tax.  What  could  the  Bible 
teach  to  such  a  man  1  What  good  could  he  derive  from 
the  calm  air  of  the  house  of  worship?  He  sent  his  only 
son  to  the  city,  with  injunctions  instilled  into  him  to  make 
the  most  of  all  transactions,  at  every  hazard  but  that  of 
his  money  ;  and  the  consequence  was,  in  a  Cew  years, 
shame,  ruin,  and  expatriation.  His  only  daughter,  im- 
prisoned, dispirited,  enthralled,  fell  a  prey  to  a  sensual 
seducer;  and  being  driven  from  her  father's  house,  aban- 
doned herself,  in  hopeless  misery,  to  a  life  of  prostitution. 
His  wife,  heart-broken  by  cruelty  and  aflliction,  was  never 
afterwards  altogether  in  her  right  mind,  and  now  sits 
weeping  by  the  hearth,  or  wanders  off  to  distant  places, 


COTTAGES.  143 

lone  houses  and  villages,  almost  in  the  condition  of  an 
idiot — wild-eyed,  loose-haired,  and  dressed  like  a  very 
beggar.  Speculation  after  speculation  failed — he  had  to 
curse  four  successive  plentiful  harvests — and  his  mailing 
was  now  destitute.  The  unhappy  man  grew  sour,  stern, 
fierce,  in  his  calamity ;  and  when  his  brain  was  inflamed 
with  liquor,  a  dangerous  madman.  He  is  now  a  sort  of 
cattle-dealer — buys  and  sells  miserable  horses — and  at 
fairs  associates  with  knaves  and  reprobates,  knowing  that 
no  honest  man  will  deal  with  him  except  in  pity  or 
derision.  He  has  more  than  once  attempted  to  commit 
suicide — but  palsy  has  stricken  him — and  in  a  few  weeks 
he  will  totter  into  the  grave. 

There  is  a  cottage  in  that  hollow,  and  you  see  the 
smoke — even  the  chimney-top,  but  you  could  not  see  the 
cottage  itself,  unless  you  were  within  fifty  yards  of  it,  so 
surrounded  is  it  with  knolls  and  small  green  eminences, 
in  a  den  of  its  own,  a  shoot  or  scion  from  the  main  stem 
of  the  valley.  It  is  called  the  Broom,  and  there  is  some- 
thing singular,  and  not  uninteresting,  in  the  history  of  its 
owner.  He  married  very  early  in  life,  indeed  when  quite 
a  boy,  which  is  not,  by  the  way,  very  unusual  among  the 
peasantry  of  Scotland,  prudent  and  calculating  as  is  their 
general  character.  Gabriel  Adamson,  before  he  was  thirty 
years  of  age,  had  a  family  of  seven  children,  and  a  pretty 
family  they  were  as  might  be  seen  in  all  the  parish. 
Gabriel's  life  was  in  theirs,  and  his  mind  never  wandered 
far  from  his  fireside.  His  wife  was  of  a  consumptive 
family,  and  that  insidious  and  fatal  disease  never  showed 
in  her  a  single  symptom  during  ten  years  of  marriage; 
but  one  cold  evening  awoke  it  at  her  very  heart,  and  in 
less  than  two  months  it  hurried  her  into  the  grave.  Poor 
creature,  such  a  spectre !  when  her  husband  used  to  carry 
her,  for  the  sake  of  a  little  temporary  pelief,  from  chair  to 
couch,  and  from  her  couch  back  again  to  her  bed,  twenty 
times  in  a  day,  he  never  could  help  weeping,  with  all  his 
consideration,  to  feel  her  frame  as  light  as  a  bundle  of 
leaves.  The  medical  man  said,  that  in  all  his  practice  he 
never  had  known  soul  and  body  keep  together  in  such 
utter  attenuation.  But  her  soul  was  as  clear  as  ever — 
and  pain,  racking  pain,  was  in  her  fleshless  bones.     Even 


14-4  avilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

ho,  her  loving  husband,  was  relieved  from  wo  when  she 
expired,  for  no  sadness,  no  sorrow,  could  be  equal  to  the 
misery  of  groans  from  one  so  patient  and  so  resigned. 
Perhaps  consumption  is  infectious ;  so,  at  least,  it  seemed 
here;  for  first  one  child  began  to  droop,  and  then  another 
— the  elder  ones  first — and  within  the  two  following  years, 
there  were  almost  as  many  funerals  from  this  one  house 
as  from  all  the  others  in  the  parish.  Yes — they  all  died 
— of  the  whole  family  not  one  was  spared.  Two,  indeed, 
were  thought  to  have  pined  away  in  a  sort  of  fearful  fore- 
boding— and  a  fever  took  otf  a  third — but  four  certainly 
died  of  the  same  hereditary  complaint  with  the  mother; 
and  not  a  voice  was  heard  in  the  house.  Gabriel  Adam- 
son  did  not  desert  the  Broom ;  and  the  farm-work  was 
still  carried  on,  nobody  could  tell  how.  The  servants, 
to  be  sure,  knew  their  duty,  and  often  performed  it  with- 
out orders.  Sometimes  the  master  put  his  hand  to  the 
plough,  but  oftener  he  led  the  life  of  a  shepherd,  and  was 
by  himself  among  the  hills.  He  never  smiled — and  at 
every  meal,  he  still  sat  like  a  man  about  to  be  led  to  die. 
But  what  will  not  retire  away — recede — disappear  from 
the  vision  of  the  souls  of  us  mortals !  Tenacious  as  we 
are  of  our  griefs,  even  more  than  of  our  joys,  both  elude 
our  grasp.  We  gaze  after  them  with  longing  or  self- 
upbraiding  aspirations  for  their  return,  but  they  are  as 
shadows,  and  like  shadows  evanish.  Then  human  duties, 
lowly  though  they  may  be,  have  their  sanative  and  salu- 
tary influence  on  our  whole  frame  of  being.  Without 
their  performance  conscience  cannot  be  still ;  with  it,  con- 
science brings  peace  in  extremity  of  evil.  Then  occupa- 
tion kills  grief,  and  industry  abates  all  passion.  No  balm 
for  sorrow  like  the  sweat  of  the  brow  poured  into  the  fur- 
rows of  the  earth,  in  the  open  air,  and  beneath  the  sun- 
shine of  heaven.  These  truths  were  felt  by  Gabriel 
Adamson,  the  childless  widower,  long  before  they  were 
understood  by  him;  and  when  two  years  had  gone  drea- 
rily, ay,  dismally,  almost  d(;spairingly,  by — he  began  at 
times  to  feel  something  like  happiness  when  sitting  among 
his  friends  in  the  kirk,  or  at  their  firesides,  or  in  the 
labours  of  the  field,  or  even  on  the  market-day,  among 
this  world's  concerns.     Thus,  they  who  know  him  and 


COTTAGES.  145 

his  sufferings,  were  pleased  to  recognise  what  might  be 
called  resignation  and  its  grave  tranquillity,  while  stran- 
gers discerned  in  him  nothing  more  than  a  staid  and 
solemn  demeanour,  which  might  be  natural  to  many  a 
man  never  severely  tried,  and  otTered  no  interruption  to 
the  cheerfulness  that  pervaded  their  ordinary  life. 

Gabriel  Adamson  had  a  cousin,  a  few  years  younger 
than  himself,  who  had  also  married  when  a  girl,  and  when 
little  more  than  a  girl  had  been  left  a  widow.  Her  parents 
were  both  dead,  and  she  had  lived  for  some  years,  as  an 
upper  servant,  or  rather  companion  and  friend,  in  the  house 
of  a  relation.  As  cousins,  they  had  all  their  lives  been 
familiar  and  affectionate,  and  Alice  Gray  had  frequently 
lived  for  months  at  a  time,  at  the  Broom,  taking  care  of 
the  children,  and  in  all  respects  one  of  the  family.  Their 
conditions  were  now  almost  equally  desolate,  and  a  deep 
sympathy  made  them  now  more  firmly  attached  than  they 
ever  could  have  been  in  better  days.  Still,  nothing  at  all 
resembling  love  was  in  either  of  their  hearts,  nor  did  the 
thought  of  marriage  ever  pass  across  their  imaginations. 
They  found,  however,  increasing  satisfaction  in  each  other's 
company  ;  and  looks  and  words  of  sad  and  sober  endear- 
ment gradually  bound  them  together  in  affection  stronger 
far  than  either  could  have  believed.  Their  friends  saw 
and  spoke  of  the  attachment,  and  of  its  probable  result, 
long  before  they  were  aware  of  its  full  nature  ;  and  nobody 
was  surprised,  but,  on  the  contrary,  all  were  well  pleased, 
when  it  was  understood  that  Gabriel  Adamson  and  Alice 
Gray  were  to  be  man  and  wire.  There  was  something 
almost  mournful  in  their  marriage — no  rejoicing — no 
merry-making — but  yet  visible  symptoms  of  gratitude, 
contentment,  and  peace.  An  air  of  cheerfulness  was  not 
long  of  investing  the  melancholy  Broom — ihe  very  swal- 
lows twittered  more  gladly  from  the  window-corners,  and 
there  was  joy  in  the  cooing  of  the  pigeons  on  the  sunny 
roof.  The  farm  awoke  through  all  its  fields,  and  the 
farm-servants  once  more  sang  and  whistled  at  their  work. 
The  wandering  beggar,  who  remembered  the  charity  of 
other  years,  looked  with  no  cold  expression  on  her  who 
now  dealt  out  his  dole ;  and  as  his  old  eyes  were  dimmed 
with  tears  for  the  sake  of  those  who  were  gone,  gave  a 

VOL.  r.  1.3 


146  avilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

fervent  blessing  on  the  new  mistress  of  the  house,  and 
prayed  that  she  might  live  for  many  years.  The  neigh- 
bours, even  they  who  had  best  loved  the  dead,  came  in 
with  cheerful  countenances,  and  acknowledged  in  their 
pensive  hearts,  that  since  change  is  the  law  of  life,  there 
was  no  one,  far  or  near,  whom  they  could  have  borne  to 
see  sitting  in  that  chair  but  Alice  Gray.  Gabriel  knew 
their  feelings  from  their  looks,  and  his  fireside  blazed  once 
more  with  a  cheerful  lustre. 

O,  gentle  reader,  young  perhaps,  and  inexperienced  of 
this  world,  wonder  not  at  this  so  great  change !  Thy 
heart  is  full,  perhaps,  of  a  pure  and  holy  affection,  nor  can 
it  die,  even  for  an  hour  of  sleep.  May  it  never  die  but  in 
the  grave !  Yet  die  it  may,  and  leave  thee  blameless. 
The  time  may  come  when  that  bosom,  now  thy  elysium, 
will  awaken  not,  with  all  its  heaving  beauty,  one  single 
passionate  or  adoring  sigh.  Those  eyes,  that  now  stream 
agitation  and  bliss  into  thy  throbbing  heart,  may,  on  some 
not  very  distant  day,  be  cold  to  thy  imagination,  as  the 
distant  and  unheeded  stars.  That  voice,  now  thrilling 
through  every  nerve,  and  expressive  of  paradise,  may  fall 
on  thy  ear  a  disregarded  sound.  Other  hopes,  other  fears, 
other  troubles,  may  possess  thee  wholly — and  that  more 
than  angel  of  heaven  seem  to  fade  away  into  a  shape  of 
earth's  most  common  clay.  But  here  there  was  no  change 
— no  forgetfulness — no  oblivion — no  unfaithfulness  to  a 
holy  trust.  The  widower  still  saw  his  Hannah,  and  all 
his  seven  sweet  children — now  fair  in  life — now  pale  in 
death.  Sometimes,  perhaps,  the  sight,  the  sound — their 
smiles,  and  their  voices,  disturbed  him,  till  his  heart  quaked 
within  him,  and  he  wished  that  he  too  was  dead.  But  God 
it  was  who  had  removed  them  from  our  earth — and  was  it 
possible  to  doubt  that  they  were  all  in  blessedness  !  Shed 
your  tears  over  change  from  virtue  to  vice,  happiness  to 
misery;  but  weep  not  for  those  still,  sad,  mysterious  pro- 
cesses by  which  gracious  nature  alleviates  the  adlictions 
of  our  mortal  lot,  and  enables  us  to  endure  the  life  which 
the  Lord  our  God  has  given  us.  Ere  long,  Gabriel  Adam- 
son  and  his  wife  could  bear  to  speak  of  those  who  were 
now  no  more  seen  ;  when  the  phantoms  rose  before  them 
in  the  silence  of  the  night,  they  all  wore  pleasant  and 


COTTAGES.  147 

approving  countenances,  and  the  beautiful  family  often 
came  from  heaven  to  visit  their  father  in  his  dreams.  He 
did  not  wish,  much  less  hope,  in  this  life,  for  such  happi- 
ness as  had  once  been  his — nor  did  Alice  Gray,  even  for 
one  hour,  imagine  that  such  happiness  was  in  her  power 
to  bestow.  They  knew  each  other's  hearts — what  they 
had  suffered  and  survived — and  since  the  meridian  of  life 
and  joy  was  gone,  they  were  contented  with  the  pensive 
twilight. 

Look,  there  is  a  pretty  cottage — by  name  Leaside — one 
that  might  almost  do  for  a  painter — just  sufficiently  shaded 
by  trees,  and  showing  a  new  aspect  every  step  you  take, 
and  each  new  aspect  beautiful.  There  is,  it  is  true,  neither 
moss  nor  lichens,  nor  weather-stains  on  the  roof — but  all 
is  smooth,  neat,  trim,  deep  thatch,  from  rigging  to  eaves, 
with  a  picturesque  elevated  window  covered  with  the  same 
material,  and  all  the  walls  white  as  snow.  The  whole 
building  is  at  all  times  as  fresh  as  if  just  washed  by  a  ver- 
nal shower.  Competence  breathes  from  every  lattice,  and 
that  porch  has  been  reared  more  for  ornament  than  defence, 
although,  no  doubt,  it  is  useful  both  in  March  and  Novem- 
ber winds.  Every  field  about  it  is  like  a  garden,  and  yet 
the  garden  is  brightly  conspicuous  amidst  all  the  surround- 
ing cultivation.  The  hedgerows  are  all  clipped,  for  they 
have  grown  there  for  thirty  years,  at  least,  and  the  shears 
were  necessary  to  keep  them  down,  from  shutting  out  the 
vista  of  the  lovely  vale.  That  is  the  dwelling  of  Adam 
Airlie  the  elder.  Happy  old  man  !  This  life  has  gone 
uniformly  well  with  liim  and  his ;  yet,  had  it  been  other- 
wise, there  is  a  power  in  his  spirit  that  would  have  sus- 
tained the  severest  inflictions  of  Providence.  His  grati- 
tude to  God  is  something  solemn  and  awful,  and  ever 
accompanied  with  a  profound  sense  of  his  utter  unworthi- 
ness  of  all  the  long-continued  mercies  vouchsafed  to  his 
family.  His  own  happiness,  prolonged  to  extreme  old 
age,  has  not  closed  within  his  heart  one  source  of  pity  or 
atfection  for  his  brethren  of  mankind.  In  his  own  guiltless 
conscience,  guiltless  before  man,  he  yet  feels  incessantly 
the  frailties  of  his  nature,  and  is  meek,  humble,  and  peni- 
tent as  the  greatest  sinner.  He,  his  wife,  an  old  faithful 
female    servant,   and   a   sweet   grandaughter   of   twelve 


148  Wilson's  miscellaneous  avritings. 

years,  now  form  the  whole  household.  His  three  sons 
have  all  prospered  in  the  world.  The  eldest  went  abroad 
when  a  mere  boy,  and  many  fears  went  with  him,  a  bold, 
adventurous,  and  somewhat  reckless  creature.  But  consi- 
deration came  to  him  in  a  foreign  climate,  and  tamed  down 
his  ardent  mind  to  a  thoughtful,  not  a  selfish  prudence. 
Twenty  years  he  lived  in  India — and  what  a  blessed  day 
was  the  day  of  his  return  !  Yet  in  the  prime  of  life,  by 
disease  unbroken,  and  with  a  heart  full  to  overflowing  with 
all  its  old  sacred  affections,  he  came  back  to  his  father's 
lowly  cottage,  and  wept  as  he  crossed  the  threshold.  His 
parents  needed  not  any  of  his  wealth,  but  they  were 
blamelessly  proud,  nevertheless,  of  his  honest  acquisitions — 
proud  when  he  became  a  landholder  in  his  native  parish, 
and  employed  the  sons  of  his  old  companions,  and  some  of 
his  old  companions  themselves,  in  the  building  of  his  unos- 
tentatious mansion,  or  in  cultivating  the  wild  but  not  un- 
lovely moor,  which  was  dear  to  him  for  the  sake  of  the 
million  remembrances  that  clothed  the  bare  banks  of  its 
lochs,  and  murmured  in  the  little  stream  that  ran  among 
the  pastoral  braes.  The  new  mansion  is  a  couple  of  miles 
from  his  parental  cottage ;  but  not  a  week,  indeed  seldom 
half  that  time  elapses,  without  a  visit  to  that  dear  dwelling. 
They  likewise  not  unfrequently  visit  him — for  his  wife  is 
dear  to  them  as  a  daughter  of  their  own — and  the  ancient 
couple  delight  in  the  noise  and  laughter  of  his  pretty  flock. 
Yet  the  son  understands  perfectly  well  that  aged  people 
love  best  their  own  roof — and  that  its  familiar  quiet  is 
every  day  dearer  to  their  habituated  affections.  Therefore 
he  makes  no  parade  of  filial  tenderness — forces  nothing 
new  upon  them — is  glad  to  see  the  uninterrupted  tenor  of 
their  humble  happiness ;  and  if  they  are  proud  of  him, 
which  all  the  parish  knows,  so  is  there  not  a  child  within 
its  bounds  that  does  not  know,  that  Mr.  Airlie,  the  rich 
gentleman  from  India,  loves  his  poor  father  and  mother  as 
tenderly  as  if  he  had  never  left  their  roof;  and  is  prouder 
of  them  too,  than  if  they  were  clothed  in  fine  raiment,  and 
fared  sumptuously  every  day.  Mr.  Airlie  of  the  mount 
has  his  own  seat  in  the  gallery  of  the  kirk — his  father,  as 
an  elder,  sits  below  the  pulpit — but  occasionally  the  pious 
and  proud  son  joins  his  mother  in  the  pew,  where  he  and 


COTTAGES.  149 

his  brothers  sat  long  ago ;  and  every  Sabbath  one  or  other 
of  his  children  takes  its  place  beside  the  venerated  matron. 
The  old  man  generally  leaves  the  churchyard  leaning  on 
his  Gilbert's  arm — and  although  the  sight  has  long  been 
so  common  as  to  draw  no  attention,  yet  no  doubt  there  is 
always  an  under  and  unconscious  pleasure  in  many  a  mind 
witnessing  the  sacredness  of  the  bond  of  blood.  Now  and 
then  the  old  matron  is  prevailed  upon,  when  the  weather  is 
bad  and  roads  miry,  to  take  a  seat  home  in  the  carriage — 
but  the  elder  always  prefers  walking  thither  with  his  son, 
and  he  is  stout  and  hale,  although  upwards  of  threescore 
and  ten  years. 

Walter,  the  second  son,  is  a  captain  in  the  navy,  having 
served  for  years  before  the  mast.  His  mind  is  in  his  pro- 
fession, and  he  is  perpetually  complaining  of  being  unem- 
ployed— a  ship,  is  still  the  burden  of  his  song.  But  when 
at  home — which  he  often  is,  for  weeks  together — he  at- 
taches himself  to  all  the  on-goings  of  rural  lile,  as  devo- 
tedly as  if  ci  plougbor  of  thft  soil  instead  of  the  sea.  His 
mother  wonders,  with  tears  in  her  eyes,  why,  having  a 
competency,  he  should  still  wish  to  provoke  the  dangers  of 
the  deep;  and  beseeches  him  sometimes  to  become  a  far- 
mer in  his  native  vale.  And  perhaps  more  improbable 
things  have  happened  ;  for  the  captain,  it  is  said,  has  fallen 
desperately  in  love  with  the  daughter  of  the  clergyman  of 
a  neighbouring  parish,  and  the  doctor  will  not  give  his 
consent  to  the  marriage,  unless  he  promise  to  live,  if 
allowed,  on  shore.  The  political  state  of  Europe  certainly 
seems  at  present  favourable  to  the  consummation  of  the 
wishes  of  all  parties. 

Of  David,  the  third  son,  who  has  not  heard,  that  has 
heard  any  thing  of  the  pulpit  eloquence  of  Scotland  ? — 
Should  his  life  be  spared,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  he 
will  one  day  or  other  be  moderator  of  the  General  Assem- 
bly, perhaps  professor  of  divinity  in  a  college.  Be  that  as 
it  may,  a  better  Christian  never  expounded  the  truth  of  the 
Gospel,  although  some  folks  pretend  to  say  that  he  is  not 
evangelical.  He  is,  however,  beloved  by  the  poor — the 
orphan  and  the  widow  ;  and  his  religion,  powerful  in  the 
kirk  to  a  devoutly  listening  congregation,  is  so  too  at  the 
sick-bed,  when  only  two  or  three  are  gathered  around  if, 
13* 


150  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

and  when  ihe  dying  man  feels  how  a  fellow-creature  can, 
by  scriptural  aids,  strengthen  his  trust  in  the  mercy  of 
God. 

Every  year,  on  each  hirth-day  of  their  sons,  the  old 
people  have  a  festival — in  May,  in  August,  and  on  Christ- 
mas. The  sailor  alone  looks  disconsolate  as  a  bachelor, 
but  that  reproach  will  be  wiped  away  before  autumn;  and 
should  God  grant  the  cottagers  a  few  more  years,  some 
new  faces  will  yet  smile  upon  the  holidays  ;  and  there  is 
in  their  unwithered  hearts  warm  love  enough  for  all  that 
may  join  the  party.  We  too — yes,  gentle  reader — we  too 
shallbe  there — as  we  have  often  been  during  the  last  ten 
years — and  you  yourself  will  judge  from  all  you  know  of 
us,  if  we  have  a  heart  to  understand  and  enjoy  such  rare 
felicity. 

Let  us  be  ofTto  the  mountains,  and  endeavour  to  interest 
our  beloved  reader,  in  a  highland  cottage — in  any  one, 
taken  at  hap-hazard,  from  a  hundred.  You  have  been 
roamin'^''  all  day  among  tho  mountains,  and  [jerliaps  seen 
no  house  except  at  a  dwindling  distance.  Probably  you 
have  wished  not  to  see  any  house,  but  a  ruined  shiel- 
ing— a  deserted  hut — or  an  unroofed  and  dilapidated  shed 
for  the  out-lying  cattle  of  some  remote  farm.  But  now 
the  sun  has  inflamed  all  the  western  heaven,  and  darkness 
will  soon  descend.  There  is  a  muteness  in  the  desert 
more  stern  and  solemn  than  during  unfadcd  daylight. 
List — the  faint,  far-off,  subterranean  sound  of  the  bagpipe  ! 
Some  old  soldier,  probably,  playing  a  gathering  or  a  coro- 
nach. The  narrow  dell  widens  and  widens  into  a  great 
glen,  in  which  you  just  discern  the  blue  gleam  of  a  loch. 
The  martial  music  is  more  distinctly  heard — loud,  fitful, 
fierce,  like  the  trampling  of  men  in  battle.  Where  is  the 
piper  ?  In  a  cave,  or  within  the  fairies'  knoll  ?  At 
the  door  of  a  hut.  His  eyes  are  extinguished  by  oph- 
thalmia, and  there  he  sits,  fronting  the  sunlight,  stone- 
blind.  Long  silver  hair  flows  down  his  broad  shoulders, 
and  you  perceive  that  when  he  rises,  he  will  rear  up  a 
stately  bulk.  The  music  stops,  and  you  hear  the  bleating 
of  goats.  There  they  come,  dancing  down  the  rocks,  and 
stare  upon  the  stranger.  The  old  soldier  turns  himself 
towards  the  voice  of  the  Sassenach,    and  with  the  bold 


COTTAGES.  151 

courtesy  of  the  camp,  bids  him  enter  the  hut.  One 
minute's  view  has  sufficed  to  imprint  the  vision  for  ever  on 
the  memory — a  hut  wliose  turf-walls  and  roof  are  incor- 
porated  with  the  living  mountain,  and  seem  not  the  work 
of  man's  hand,  but  the  casual  architecture  of  some  convul- 
sion— the  tumbling  down  of  fragments  from  the  mountain 
side  by  raging  torrents,  or  a  partial  earthquake ;  for  all 
the  scenery  about  is  torn  to  pieces — like  the  scattering  of 
some  wide  ruin.  The  imagination  dreams  of  the  earliest 
days  of  our  race,  when  men  harboured,  like  the  other 
creatures,  in  places  provided  by  nature.  But  even  here, 
there  are  visible  traces  of  cultivation  working  in  the  spirit 
of  a  mountainous  region — a  few  glades  of  the  purest  ver- 
dure opened  out  among  the  tall  brackens,  with  a  birch 
tree  or  two  dropped  just  where  the  eye  of  taste  could  have 
wished,  had  the  painter  planted  the  sapling,  instead  of  the 
winds  of  heaven  having  wafted  thither  the  seed — a  small 
croft  of  barley,  surrounded  by  a  cairn-like  wall,  made  up 
of  stones  cleared  from  the  soil,  and  a  patch  of  potato- 
ground,  neat  almost  as  the  garden  that  shows  in  a  nook 
its  fruit-bushes,  and  a  few  flowers.  All  the  blasts  that 
ever  blew  must  be  unavailing  against  the  briary  rock  that 
shelters  the  hut  from  the  airt  of  storms ;  and  the  smoke 
may  rise  under  its  lee,  unwavering  on  the  windiest  day. 
There  is  sweetness  in  all  the  air,  and  the  glen  is  noiseless, 
except  with  the  uncertain  murmur  of  the  now  unswollen 
waterfalls.  That  is  the  croak  of  the  raven  sitting  on  his 
cliff  half  way  up  Benevis  ;  and  hark,  the  last  bellino-of  the 
red-deer,  as  the  herd  lies  down  in  the  mist  among  the  last 
ridge  of  heather,  blending  with  the  shrubless  stones, 
rocks,  and  cliffs  that  girdle  the  upper  regions  of  the  vast 
mountain. 

Within  the  dimness  of  the  hut  you  hear  greetings  in  the 
Gaelic  tongue,  in  a  female  voice,  and  when  the  eye  has  by 
and  by  become  able  to  endure  the  smoke,  it  discerns  the 
household — the  veteran's  ancient  dame — a  young  man 
that  may  be  his  son,  or  rather  his  grandson,  but  whom 
you  soon  know  to  be  neither,  with  black,  matted  locks,  the 
keen  eye,  and  the  light  limbs  of  the  hunter — a  young 
married  woman  his  wife,  suckling  a  child,  and  yet  with  a 
girlish  look,  as  if,  but  one  year  before,  her  silken  snood 


152  Wilson's  .miscellaneous  writings. 

had  been  untied — and  a  lassie  of  ten  years,  who  had 
brought  home  the  goats,  and  now  sits  timidly  in  a  nook 
eyeing  the  stranger.  The  low  growl  of  the  huge,  brindled 
stag-hound  had  been  hushed  by  a  word,  on  your  first 
entrance,  and  the  noble  animal  watches  his  master's  eye, 
which  he  obeys  in  his  freedom  throughout  all  the  wild 
bounds  of  the  forest-chase.  A  napkin  is  taken  out  of  an 
old  worm-eaten  chest,  and  spread  over  a  strangely  carved 
table,  that  seems  to  have  belonged  once  to  a  place  of  pride  ; 
and  the  hungry  and  thirsty  stranger  scarcely  knows  which 
most  to  admire,  the  broad  bannocks  of  barley-meal,  and 
the  huge  roll  of  butter,  or  the  giant  bottle,  whose  mouth 
exhales  the  strong  savour  of  conquering  Glenlivet.  The 
board  is  spread,  why  not  fall  to  and  eat'.'  First  be  thanks 
given  to  the  great  God  of  the  wilderness.  The  blind  man 
holds  up  his  hand  and  prays  in  a  low  chaunting  voice,  and 
then  breaks  bread  for  the  lips  of  the  stranger.  On  such  an 
occasion  is  felt  the  sanctity  of  the  meal  shared  by  humcm 
beings  brought  accidentally  together — the  salt  is  sacred — 
and  the  hearth  an  altar. 

No  great  travellers  are  we,  yet  have  we  seen  something 
of  this  habitable  globe.  The  Highlands  of  Scotland  is  but 
a  small  region,  nor  is  its  interior  by  any  means  so  remote 
as  the  interior  of  Africa.  Yet  is  the  life  of  man  here  far 
indeed  remote  from  the  life  of  almost  any  man  who  sub- 
scribes to  this  Magazine.  The  life  of  that  very  blind  vete- 
ran might,  in  better  hands  than  ours,  make  an  interesting 
history.  In  his  youth  he  had  been  a  shepherd — a  herds- 
man— a  hunter — something  even  of  a  poet.  For  thirty 
years  he  had  been  a  soldier — in  many  climates,  and  many 
conflicts.  Since  first  he  bloodied  his  bayonet,  how  many 
thousands  on  thousands  of  his  commilitoncs  had  been 
buried  in  heaps!  Fhmg  into  trenches  dug  on  the  field  of 
battle !  How  many  famous  captains  had  shone  in  the 
blaze  of  their  fame — faded  into  the  light  of  common  day — 
died  in  obscurity,  and  been  utterly  forgotten  !  What  fierce 
passions  must  have  agitated  the  frame  of  that  now  calm 
old  man  !  On  what  dreadful  scenes  of  plunder,  rape,  and 
murder,  when  forts  and  towns  were  taken  by  storm,  must 
those  eyes,  now  withered  into  nothing,  have  glared  with 
all  tlic  fury  of  a  victorious  soldier,  ragino;  in  the  lust  of 


COTTAGES.  153 

blood  !  Now  peace  is  with  him  foi*  evermore.  Nothing 
to  speak  of  the  din  of  battle,  but  his  own  pipes  wailing  or 
rawino-  amon"  the  hollow  of  the  mountains.  In  relation  to 
his  campaigning  career,  his  present  life  is  as  the  life  of 
another  state.  The  pageantry  of  war  has  all  rolled  off 
and  away  for  ever ;  all  its  actions  but  phantoms  now  of  a 
dimly-remembered  dream.  He  thinks  of  his  former  self,  as 
sergeant  in  the  Black-watch,  and  almost  thinks  he  beholds 
another  man.  In  his  long — long  blindness,  he  has  created 
another  world  to  himself  out  of  new  voices — the  voices  of 
new  generations,  and  of  torrents  thundering  all  year-long 
round  about  his  hut.  Almost  all  the  savage  has  been 
tamed  within  him,  and  an  awful  religion  falls  deeper  and 
deeper  upon  him,  as  he  knows  how  he  is  nearing  the 
grave.  Often  his  whole  mind  is  dim,  for  he  is  exceedingly 
old,  and  then  he  sees  only  fragments  of  his  youthful  life — 
the  last  forty  years  are  as  if  they  had  never  been — and  he 
hears  shouts  and  huzzas,  that  half  a  century  ago  rent  the 
air  with  victory.  He  can  still  chaunt,  in  a  hoarse  broken 
voice,  battle-hymns  and  dirges  ;  and  thus  strangely  forget- 
ful, and  strangely  tenacious  of  the  past,  linked  to  this  life 
by  ties  that  only  the  mountaineer  can  know,  and  yet  feel- 
ing himself  on  the  brink  of  the  next.  Old  Blind  Donald 
Roy,  the  giant  of  the  hut  of  the  Three  Torrents,  will  not 
scruple  to  quaff  the  "  strong  waters,"  till  his  mind  is 
awakened — brightened — dimmed — darkened — and  seem- 
ingly extinguished  in  drunkenness  like  death,  till  the  sun- 
rise again  smites  him,  as  he  lies  in  a  heap  among  the 
heather  ;  and  then  he  lifts  up,  unashamed  and  remorseless, 
that  head,  which  with  its  long  silvery  hairs,  a  painter  might 
choose  for  the  image  of  a  saint  about  to  become  a  martyr. 
Were  the  supposition  not  somewhat  odious,  gentle 
reader,  we  should  for  a  moment  suppose  you  to  be  a  cock- 
ney. No  doubt  you  have  been  at  Epping  Hunt ;  and  a 
good  hunt  it  is,  when  Tims  is  Nimrod.  Come  hither, 
then,  with  us,  to  the  forest  that  surrounds  the  hut  of  the 
Three  Torrents.  Let  us  leave  old  Donald  asleep  after  a 
debauch,  and  go  with  his  son-in-law,  Lewis  of  the  light- 
foot,  and  Maida  the  stag-hound,  surnamed  the  Throttler, 


Wfiere  tlic  hunter  of  deer  and  tlic  warrior  trod 
To  liis  hills  that  encircle  the  sea." 


154  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

Wc  have  been  asccndina:  mountain-ranffe  after  moun- 
tain-range,  before  sunrise ;  and  lo !  night  is  gone,  and 
nature  rejoices  in  the  day  through  all  her  solitudes  !  Still 
as  death,  yet  as  life  cheerful — and  unspeakable  grandeur 
in  the  sudden  revelation.  Where  is  the  wild-deer  herd  ? — 
where,  ask  the  keen  eyes  of  Maida,  is  the  forest  of  antlers  1 
— Lewis  of  the  light-foot  bounds  before,  with  his  long  gun 
pointing  towards  the  mists  now  gathered  up  to  the  summits 
of  Benevis.  Not  a  word  is  heard,  only  our  own  panting 
breath. 

But  here  let  us  call  in  to  our  aid  a  poem  written  by  one 
who  knows  the  Highlands  well, — and  will  not  grudge,  we 
hope,  to  sec  his  poetry  among  our  prose  ;  we  mean  Pro- 
fessor Wilson. 

ADDRESS  TO  A  WILD  DEER.* 

Magnificent  creature  !  .«o  stately  and  bright ! 

In  the  pride  of  thy  spirit  pursuing  tliy  flight; 

For  what  hath  the  child  of  tiie  desert  to  dread, 

Wafting  up  his  own  mountains  that  far-beaming  head  ; 

Or  borne  like  a  whirlwind  down  on  the  vale  .' — 

Hail  !  king  of  the  wild  and  the  beautiful! — hail! 

Hail !  idol  divine!   whom  nature  hath  borne 

O'er  a  hundred  hill-tops  since  the  mists  of  the  morn. 

Whom  the  pilgrim  lone  wandering  on  mountain  and  moor, 

As  the  vision  glides  hy  him,  may  blameloss  adore; 

For  the  joy  of  the  happy,  the  strength  of  the  free, 

Are  spread  in  a  garment  of  glory  o'er  thee. 

Up!  up  to  yon  cliff!  like  a  king  to  his  throne  ! 

O'er  the  black  silent  forest  piled  lofty  and  lone — 

A  throne  which  the  eagle  is  glad  to  resign 

Unto  footsteps  so  fleet  and  so  fearless  as  thine. 

There  the  biigiit  heather  springs  up  in  love  of  thy  breast — 

Lo!  the  clouds  in  the  depth  of  the  sky  are  at  rest; 

And  the  race  of  the  wild  winds  is  o'er  on  the  hill ! 

In  the  hush  of  the  mountains,  ye  antlers,  lie  still — 

Though  your  branches  now  toss  in  the  storm  of  delight, 

Like  the  arms  of  the  |)ine  on  yon  shelterless  height. 

One  moment — thou  briirht  apparition! — delay! 

Then  melt  o'er  the  crags,  like  the  sun  from  the  day. 

*  Poems,  by  John  Wilson,  vol.  ii.  p.  31. 


COTTAGES.  155 

Aloft  on  the  weather-gleam,  scorning  the  earth, 
The  wild  spirit  hung  in  majestical  mirth  : 
In  dalliance  with  danger,  he  bounded  in  bliss, 
O'er  the  fathomless  gloom  of  each  moaning  abyss; 
O'er  the  grim  rocks  careering  with  prosperous  motion, 
Like  a  ship  by  herself  in  full  sail  o'er  the  ocean! 
Then  proudly  he  turn'd  ere  he  sank  to  the  dell, 
And  shook  from  his  forehead  a  haughty  farewell, 
While  his  horns  in  a  crescent  of  radiance  shone, 
Like  a  flag  burning  bright  when  the  vessel  is  gone. 

The  ship  of  the  desert  hath  pass'd  on  the  wind, 
And  left  the  dark  ocean  of  mountains  behind  ! 
But  my  spirit  will  travel  wherever  she  flee. 
And  behold  her  in  ])omp  o'er  the  rim  of  the  sea — 
Her  voyage  pursue — till  her  anchor  be  cast 
In  some  clifF-girdled  haven  of  beauty  at  last. 

What  lonely  magnificence  stretches  around  ! 

Each  sight  how  sublime  !  and  how  awful  each  sound  ! 

All  hush'd  and  serene,  as  a  region  of  dreams. 

The  mountains  repose  'mid  the  roar  of  the  streams, 

Tlieir  glens  of  black  umbrage  by  cataracts  riven, 

But  calm  their  blue  tops  in  the  beauty  of  heaven. 

Here  the  glory  of  nature  hath  nothing  to  fear — 

Ay !  Time  the  destroyer  in  power  hath  been  here; 

And  the  forest  that  hung  on  yon  mountain  so  high. 

Like  a  black  thunder  cloud  on  the  arch  of  the  sky. 

Hath  gone,  like  that  cloud,  when  the  tempest  came  by. 

Deep  sunk  in  the  black  moor,  all  worn  and  decay'd, 

Where  the  floods  have  been  raging,  the  limbs  are  display 'd 

Of  the  pine-tree  and  oak  sleepnig  vast  in  the  gloom. 

The  kings  of  tlie  forest  disturb'd  in  their  tomb. 

E'en  now,  in  the  pomp  of  their  prime,  I  behold 

O'erhanging  the  desert  the  forests  of  old  ! 

So  gorgeous  their  verdure,  so  solemn  their  shade. 

Like  the  heavens  above  them,  they  never  may  fade. 

The  sunlight  is  on  them — in  silence  they  sleep — 

A  glimmering  glow,  like  the  breast  of  the  deep, 

When  the  billows  scarce  heave  in  the  calmness  of  morn. 

Down  the  pass  of  Glen-Etive  the  tempest  is  borne. 

And  the  hill-side  is  swinging,  and  roars  with  a  sound 

In  the  heart  of  the  forest  embosom'd  profound. 

Till  all  in  a  moment  the  tumult  is  o'er. 

And  the  mountain  of  thunder  is  still  as  the  shore. 

When  the  sea  is  at  ebb;  not  a  leaf  nor  a  breath 

To  disturb  the  wild  solitude,  steadfast  as  death. 


156  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

From  his  eyrie  the  eagle  hath  soar'd  with  a  scream, 
And  I  wake  on  the  edge  of  the  cliff  from  my  dream  ; — 
Where  now  is  the  light  of  thy  far-beaming  brow  1 
Fleet  son  of  the  wilderness!  where  art  thou  nowl 
Again  o'er  yon  crag  thou  retnrn'st  to  my  sight, 
Like  the  horns  of  tlie  moon  from  a  cloud  of  the  night! 
Serene  in  thy  travel — as  soul  in  a  dream — 
Thou  needest  no  bridge  o'er  tlie  rush  of  the  stream. 
With  thy  presence  the  pine-grove  is  iill'd,  as  with  light, 
And  the  caves,  as  thou  passest,  one  moment  are  bright. 
Through  the  arch  of  the  rainbow  that  lies  on  the  rock 
'Mid  the  mist  stealing  up  from  tiie  cataract's  shock. 
Thou  fling'st  thy  bold  beauty,  exulting  and  free, 
O'er  a  pit  of  grim  blackness,  that  roars  like  the  sea. 

His  voyage  is  o'er ! — As  if  struck  by  a  spell, 
He  motionless  stands  in  the  hush  of  the  dell, 
There  softly  and  slowly  sinks  down  on  his  breast, 
In  the  midst  of  his  pastime  enamour'd  of  rest. 
A  stream  in  a  clear  pool  that  ended  its  race — 
A  dancing  ray  chain'd  to  one  sunshiny  place — 
A  cloud  by  the  winds  to  calm  solitude  driven — 
A  hurricane  dead  in  the  silence  of  heaven  I 

Fit  couch  of  repose  for  a  pilgrim  like  thee! 

Magnificent  prison  enclosing  the  free  ! 

With  rock-wall  encircled — with  precipice  crown'd. 

Which,  awoke  by  tlie  sun,  thou  can'st  clear  at  a  bound. 

'Mid  the  fern  and  the  heather  kind  nature  doth  keep 

One  bright  spot  of  green  for  her  favourite's  sleep; 

And  close  to  that  covert,  as  clear  as  the  skies 

When  their  blue  depths  are  cloudless,  a  little  lake  lies, 

Where  the  creature  at  rest  can  his  image  behold 

Looking  up  through  the  radiance,  as  bright  and  as  bold  ! 

How  lonesome !  how  wild  !  yet  tlie  wildness  is  rife 

With  tlie  stir  of  enjoyment — the  spirit  of  life. 

Tiie  glad  fish  leaps  up  in  the  heart  of  the  lake, 

Whose  depths,  at  the  sullen  plunge,  sullenly  quake ! 

Elate  on  the  fern-branch  the  grasshopper  sings, 

And  away  in  the  midst  of  his  roundelay  springs ; 

'Mid  the  flowers  of  the  heath,  not  more  bright  than  himself, 

The  wild-bee  is  busy,  a  musical  elf — 

Then  starts  from  his  labour,  unwearied  and  gay, 

And,  circling  the  antlers,  booms  far,  far  away. 

While  high  up  the  mountains,  in  silence  remote, 

Tiic  cuckoo  unseen  is  repeating  his  note, 

And  mellowing  echo,  on  watch  in  the  skies, 

Like  a  voice  from  some  loftier  climate  replies. 


COTTAGES.  157 

With  wide-branchinnr  antlers  a  guard  to  his  breast, 

There  lies  the  wild  creature,  even  stately  in  rest ! 

'Mid  the  grandeur  of  nature,  composed  and  serene, 

And  proud  in  his  lieart  of  the  mountainous  scene, 

He  litts  his  calm  eye  to  the  eagle  and  raven. 

At  noon  sinking  down  on  smooth  wings  to  their  haven, 

As  if  in  his  soul  the  bold  animal  smiled 

To  his  friends  of  the  sky,  the  joint-heirs  of  the  wild. 

Yes!  fierce  looks  thy  nature,  even  hush'd  in  repose — 
In  the  depth  of  the  desert  regardless  of  foes. 
Thy  bold  antlers  call  on  the  hunter  afar 
With  a  haughty  defiance  to  come  to  the  war  ! 
No  outrage  is  war  to  a  creature  like  thee ! 
The  bugle-horn  fills  thy  wild  spirit  with  glee, 
As  thou  bearest  thy  neck  on  the  wings  of  the  wind. 
And  the  laggardly  gaze-hound  is  toiling  behind. 
In  the  beams  of  thy  forehead  that  glitter  with  death, 
In  feet  that  draw  power  from  the  touch  of  the  heath, — 
In  the  wide-raging  torrent  that  lends  thee  its  roar, — 
In  the  cliff  that  once  trod  must  be  trodden  no  more, — 
Thy  trust — 'mid  the  dangers  that  threaten  thy  reign! 
But  what  if  the  stag  on  the  mountain  be  slain  I 
On  the  brink  of  the  rock — lo  !  he  standeth  at  bay 
Like  a  victor  that  falls  at  the  close  of  the  day — 
While  hunter  and  hound  in  their  terror  retreat 
From  the  death  that  is  spurn'd  from  his  furious  feet: 
And  his  last  cry  of  anger  comes  back  from  the  skies. 
As  nature's  fierce  son  in  the  wilderness  dies. 
High  life  of  a  hunter!  he  meets  on  the  hill 
The  new  waken'd  daylight,  so  bright  and  so  still ; 
And  feels,  as  the  clouds  of  the  morning  unroll. 
The  silence,  the  splendour,  ennoble  his  soul. 
'Tis  his  o'er  the  mountains  to  stalk  like  a  ghost, 
Enshrouded  with  mist,  in  which  nature  is  lost, 
Till  he  lifts  up  his  eyes,  and  flood,  valley,  and  height. 
In  one  moment  all  swim  in  an  ocean  of  light; 
While  the  sun,  like  a  glorious  banner  unfurl'd. 
Seems  to  wave  o'er  a  new,  more  magnificent  world. 
'Tis  his — by  the  mouth  of  some  cavern  his  seat — 
The  lightning  of  heaven  to  hold  at  his  feet, 
While  the  thunder  below  him  that  growls  from  the  cloud, 
To  him  comes  on  echo  more  awfully  loud. 
When  the  clear  depth  of  noontide,  with  glittering  motion, 
O'erflows  the  lone  glens — an  aerial  ocean — 
When  the  earth  and  the  heavens,  in  union  profound. 
Lie  blended  in  beauty  that  knows  not  a  sound — 

VOL.  I.  14 


158  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

As  liis  eyes  in  the  sunshiny  solitude  close 

'Neath  a  rock  of  the  desert  in  dreaming  repose, 

He  sees,  in  his  slumbers,  such  visions  of  old 

As  his  wild  Gaelic  songs  to  his  infancy  told ; 

O'er  the  mountains  a  thousand  plumed  hunters  are  borne, 

And  he  starts  from  his  dreams  at  the  blast  of  the  horn. 

Yes!  child  of  the  desert!  fit  quarry  wert  thou 

For  the  hunter  that  came  witli  a  crown  on  his  brow, — 

By  princes  attended  with  arrow  and  spear, 

In  their  white-tented  camp,  for  the  warfare  of  deer. 

In  splendour  the  tents  on  the  green  summit  stood. 

And  brightly  they  shone  from  the  glade  in  the  wood, 

And,  silently  built  by  a  magical  speli. 

The  pyramid  rose  in  the  depth  of  the  dell. 

All  mute  was  the  palace  of  Lochy  that  day, 

When  the  king  and  his  nobles — a  gallant  array — 

To  Gleno  or  Glen-Etive  came  forth  in  their  pride. 

And  a  hundred  fierce  stags  in  their  solitude  died. 

Not  lonely  and  single  they  pass'd  o'er  the  height — 

But  thousands  swept  by  in  their  hurricane-flight ; 

And  bow'd  to  the  dust  in  their  tran)pling  tread 

Was  the  plumage  on  many  a  warrior's  head. 

"  Fall  down  on  your  faces ! — tiie  herd  is  at  hand  !" 

And  onwards  they  came  like  the  sea  o'er  the  sand ; 

Like  the  snow  from  the  mountain  when  loosen'd  by  rain, 

And  rolling  along  with  a  crash  to  the  plain ; 

Like  a  thunder-split  oak-tree,  that  falls  in  one  shock 

With  his  hundred  wide  arms  from  the  top  of  the  rock, 

Like  the  voice  of  the  sky,  when  the  black  cloud  is  near, 

So  sudden,  so  loud,  came  the  tempest  of  deer. 

Wild  mirth  of  the  desert !  fit  pastime  for  kings  ! 

Which  still  the  rude  bard  in  his  solitude  sings. 

Oh  reign  of  magnificence  !  vanish'd  for  ever! 

Like  music  dried  up  in  the  bed  of  a  river, 

Whose  course  hath  been  changed  !  yet  my  soul  can  survey 

The  clear  cloudless  morn  of  that  glorious  day. 

Yes!  the  wide  silent  forest  is  loud  as  of  yore. 

And  the  far-ebbed  grandeur  rolls  back  to  the  shore. 

I  wake  from  my  trance  !  lo  !  the  sun  is  declining ! 
And  the  Black-mount  afar  in  his  lustre  is  shining, — 
One  soft  golden  gleam  ere  the  twilight  prevail ! 
Then  down  let  me  sink  to  the  cot  in  the  dale, 
Where  sings  the  fair  maid  to  the  viol  so  sweet. 
Or  the  floor  is  alive  with  her  white  twinkling  feet. 
Down,  down  like  a  bird  to  the  depth  of  the  dell ! 
Vanish'd  crratiire  !  I  bid  thy  fair  im;ige  farewell  ! 


COTTAGES.  159 

Nightfall — and  we  are  once  more  at  the  Hut  of  the 
Three  Torrents.  Small  Amy  is  grown  familiar  now,  and 
almost  without  being  asked,  sings  us  the  choicest  of  her 
Gaelic  airs — a  few  too  of  Lowland  melody — all  merry,  yet 
all  sad — if  in  smiles  begun,  ending  in  a  shower — or  at  least 
a  tender  mist  of  tears.  O  thou  constant  attender  at  Drury 
Lane,  Covent  Garden,  or  the  Adelphi !  O  critic  to  Clark 
or  Colburn,  armed  with  the  open-sesame  of  a  free  ticket ! 
Heard'st  thou  ever  such  a  siren  as  this  Celtic  child?  Did 
we  not  always  tell  you  that  fairies  were  indeed  realities  of 
the  twilight  or  moonlight  world  ?  And  she  is  their  Queen. 
Hark  !  What  thunders  of  applause  !  The  waterfall  at  the 
head  of  the  great  Corrie  thunders  encore  with  a  hundred 
echoes.  O  Lord,  cockney,  what  think  you  now  of  an 
oyster-shop  in  the  Strand  ? — But  the  songs  are  over,  and 
the  small  singer  gone  to  her  heather-bed.  There  is  a 
Highland  moon  !  The  shield  of  an  unfallen  archangel. 
There  are  not  many  stars — but  these  two — ay,  that  one 
is  sufficient  to  sustain  the  glory  of  the  night.  Be  not 
alarmed  at  that  low,  wide,  solemn,  and  melancholy  sound. 
Runlets,  torrents,  rivers,  lochs,  and  seas — reeds,  heather, 
forests  caves,  and  cliffs — all  are  sound,  sounding  together 
a  choral  anthem. 

Gracious  heavens  !  what  mistakes  have  people  fallen  into 
when  writing  about  solitude !  A  man  leaves  a  town  for  a 
few  months,  and  goes  with  his  wife  and  family,  and  a  tra- 
velling library,  into  some  solitary  glen.  Friends  are  per- 
petually visiting  him  from  afar,  or  the  neighbouring  gentry 
leaving  their  cards,  while  his  servant  boy  rides  daily  to  the 
post-village  for  his  letters  and  newspapers.  And  call  you 
that  solitude  ?  The  whole  world  is  with  you  morning, 
noon,  and  night.  But  go  by  yourself,  without  book  or 
friend,  and  live  a  month  in  this  hut  at  the  head  of  Glenevis. 
Go  at  dawn  among  the  cliffs  of  yonder  pine-forest,  and 
wait  there  till  night  hangs  her  moon-lamp  in  heaven. 
Commune  with  your  own  soul,  and  be  still.  Let  the 
images  of  departed  years  rise,  phantom-like,  of  their  own 
awful  accord,  from  the  darkness  of  your  memory,  and  pass 
away  into  the  wood-gloom,  or  the  mountain-mist — will 
conscience  dread  such  spectres?  Will  you  quake  before 
them,  and  bow  down  your  head  on  the  mossy  root  of  some 


160  Wilson's  miscellaneous  avritincs. 

old  oak,  and  sob  in  the  stern  silence  of  the  haunted  place? 
Thoughts,  feelings,  passions,  spectral  deeds  will  come 
rushing  around  your  lair,  as  with  the  sound  of  the  wings 
of  innumerous  birds — ay,  many  of  them  like  birds  of  prey, 
to  gnaw  your  very  heart.  How  many  sacred  duties  un- 
discharged !  How  many  glorious  opportunities  neglected  ! 
How  many  base  pleasures  devoured  !  How  many  sins 
hugged  !  How  many  wickednesses  perpetrated  !  The 
desert  looks  more  grim — the  heaven  lowers — and  the  sun, 
like  God's  own  eye,  stares  in  upon  your  most  secret 
spirit ! 

But  this  is  not  the  solitude  of  that  beautiful  young  shep- 
herdess-girl of  the  Hut  of  the  Three  Torrents.  Her  soul 
is  as  clear,  as  calm  as  the  pool,  pictured  at  times  by  the 
floating  clouds  that  let  fall  their  shadows  through  among 
the  overhanging  birch-trees.  What  harm  could  she  ever 
do?  What  harm  could  she  ever  think  ?  She  may  have 
wept,  for  there  is  sorrow  williout  sin  ;  may  have  wept  even 
at  her  prayers,  for  there  is  penitence  free  from  all  guilt, 
and  innocence  itself  often  kneels  in  contrition.  Down  the 
long  glen  she  accompanies  the  stream  to  the  house  of  God, 
— sings  her  psalms, — and  I'cturns  wearied  to  her  heather- 
bed.  She  is,  indeed,  a  solitary  child  ;  the  eagle  and  the 
raven,  and  the  red  deer,  see  that  she  is  so, — and  echo 
knows  it  when,  from  her  airy  cliff,  she  repeats  the  happy 
creature's  song.  Her  world  is  within  this  one  glen, — for 
all  beyond  has  a  dim  character  of  imagination.  In  this 
glen  she  may  live  all  her  days, — here  be  wooed,  won, 
v/edded,  buried.  Buried — said  I?  Oh,  why  think  of 
burial,  when  gazing  on  that  resplendent  head,  that  shakes 
joy  and  beauty  far  and  wide  over  the  desert  ?  Interminable 
tracts  of  the  shining  day  await  her,  the  lonely  darling  of 
nature;  nor  dare  time  ever  to  eclipse  the  lustre  of  those 
wild-beaming  eyes  !  Her  beauty  shall  be  immortal,  like 
that  of  her  country's  fairies  !  So,  flower  of  the  wilder- 
ness, I  wave  towards  thee  a  joyful, — though  an  everlast- 
ing farewell. 

We  have  been  rather  happy  in  our  description  of  a 
Highland  hut;  if  you  think  not,  attem])t  a  better,  and  its 
miserable  inferiority  to  the  above  of  ours,  will  at  once  be 
obvious  to  the  author.     It  is  diflicult  to  say  wherein  lies 


COTTAGES.  161 

the  difficulty  of  description.  Most  people  are  fond  of  rural 
sights  and  rural  sounds;  and  yet  most  people,  when  they 
take  a  pen  into  their  hand,  make  sad  work  of  it.  We 
suspect  that  the  delight  they  feel  is  of  a  vague  and  general 
kind  ;  and  that  when  they  come  to  describe  in  words, 
either  their  feelings,  or  the  objects  which  have  excited 
them,  they  experience  an  unexpected  and  painful  surprise, 
that  that  should  be  so  difficult  which  they  had  unthinkingly 
imagined  must  be  so  very  easy.  Now,  to  describe  feelings 
is  never  easy  to  a  mind  of  ordinary  habits,  for  such  minds 
have  seldom  analyzed  their  feelings  in  thoughts.  That  is 
a  rare  practice.  To  describe  external  objects,  one  by  one, 
is  no  doubt  easy ;  and  accordingly  it  is  often  done  very 
well.  But  to  produce  a  picture  in  words,  there  must  be  a 
principle  of  selection,  and  that  principle  cannot  be  com- 
prehended without  much  reflection  on  the  mode  in  which 
external  objects  operate  on  the  mind.  Sometimes  a  happy 
genius,  and  sometimes  a  strong  passion,  vivifies  a  whole 
scene  in  a  single  line.  But  the  observer  of  nature,  who 
has  neither  genius,  nor  passion,  nor  metaphysics,  can  do 
little  or  nothing,  but  enumerate.  That  he  may  do  with 
great  accuracy,  for  he  may  be  a  noticing  and  sharp-sighted 
person.  Not  a  feature  of  a  landscape  shall  escape  him — 
each  sentence  of  his  description  shall  contain  a  natural  and 
true  image,  and  ordinary  people  like  himself  will  think  it 
admirable.  Yet  shall  it  be  altogether  worthless,  while  one 
stanza  of  Burns  wafts  you  into  the  very  heart  of  paradise. 
From  the  eye  of  a  poetical  lover  of  nature,  in  process  of 
time,  every  thing  unimpressive  falls  of  itself  away,  and  is 
really  not  visible.  All  the  component  parts  of  every  new 
scene  range  themselves  before  his  fancy,  according  to  a 
scale  of  natural  subordination.  He  scarcely  can  look  at  a 
scene  amiss;  its  character  is  revealed  to  his  gifted — or 
rather  say  his  practised  eye;  and  he  reads  the  physiognomy 
of  the  earth  as  rapidly  and  unerringly  as,  in  the  intercourse 
of  life,  the  intelligent  read  the  characters  of  men's  minds 
in  their  countenances.  Poor  describers  are  so,  often,  from 
faintness  of  conception  ;  but  not  always  so.  A  man  may 
have  a  strong  and  vivid  conception,  and  yet  be  unable  so 
to  select  qualities,  as  to  bring  the  object  they  compose 
before  the  eyes  of  others.     This  is  the  commonest  case ; 

14* 


162  Wilson's  miscellaneous  m'ritings. 

for  people  of  weak  or  dim  conception,  feel  no  inclination 
to  become  either  poets  or  painters.  They  are  your 
prosers. 

But  without  intensity  of  emotion  accompanying  the  per- 
ception of  the  objects  of  external  nature,  no  very  popular 
picture  in  poetry  can  be  painted.  It  will  not  do  merely 
to  feel  a  certain  calm,  equable  pleasure,  in  looking  upon 
them,  and  to  transfuse  a  portion  of  that  spirit  into  your 
descriptions;  for  the  transfused  spirit  will  be  necessarily 
fainter  than  the  faint  original  emotion.  You  must  either 
feel,  or  have  felt,  transporledly  ;  and  under  the  power  of 
feeling,  all  objects  will  be  in  glitter  or  gloom.  Even  in  the 
calmest  and  most  subdued  tone  of  the  true  poet  there  is 
passion.  However  near  the  earth,  he  is  still  on  the  wing. 
This  is  remarkably  the  case  with  Wordsworth.  In  his 
very  simplest  poems — and  some  of  them  are  too  simple 
perhaps — there  are  always  touches,  traits,  glimpses  of 
genuine  feeling — a  feeling  of  fondness,  or  affection,  or  joy, 
or  beauty.  If  you  do  not  enjoy  his  descriptions,  de{)end 
upon  it,  that  nine  times  out  of  ten  the  fault  is  your  own, 
and  that  your  power  of  emotion  is  inadequate.  In  most 
cases  familiarity  breeds  contempt,  but  not  if  the  creation 
be  the  subject.  Wordsworth  cannot  bring  himself  to  dis- 
like a  nettle — or  a  dock — or  a  mushroom  ;  and  we  bet 
you  a  set,  that  he  will  make  a  better  poem  on  a  goose- 
berry-bush, than  you  will  do  on  the  great  Persian  syca- 
more, which  is  about  seventy  feet  in  circumference. 

Now  the  delight — the  emotion  of  which  we  have  been 
prosing  away,  presupposes  knowledge.  Knowledge  6f 
what  ?  Knowledge  of  this  beautiful  round  green  earth. 
Do  you  suppose  that  Wordsworth  is  not  a  good  naturalist, 
entomologist,  botanist,  agriculturist,  and  shepherd  '/  That 
he  is,  to  a  dead  certainty.  Now  that  keeps  him  from 
talking  nonsense.  There  is  not  one  mistake — one  blunder, 
about  any  natural  object,  in  all  his  poetry.  What  could 
have  given  him  power  to  gather  up  all  that  rich  and  deep 
knowledge  of  insensate  things  ?  The  love  of  beauty — 
wonder — and  admiration — and  the  adoring  soul  of  poetry. 
His  thoughts  are  "  never  unstable  nor  desert  him  quite," 
because  the  objects  to  which  they  cleave  are  lasting  as  the 
laws  of  external  nature — immortal  as  the  soul  of  man. 


COTTAGES.  163 

When  the  Lyrical  Ballads  are  obsolete,  it  will  be  about  time 
for  this  world  to  shut  up  shop. 

Look  sharply  into  the  writings  of  clever  men,  who  have 
failed  to  delight,  although  they  may  have  given  pleasure. 
They  were  in  general  ignoramuses,  at  least  on  the  subjects 
in  which  they  had  but  this  partial  success.  How  many 
thousands  and  tens  of  thousands  have  written  pastorals? 
Humble  life,  in  Britain,  has  been  written  about,  within 
these  fifty  years,  in  one  form  or  another,  by  as  many 
persons  as  are  now  in  Edinburgh,  Leith,  and  suburbs — 
about  150,000.  Now,  perhaps  not  above  a  dozen  of  all 
these  have  written  any  thing  that  will  live.  Goldsmith, 
Cowper,  Crabbe,  Wordsworth,  Scott,  Burns,  Ramsay, 
Hogg,  Cunninghame,  Bloomfield,  Clare,  and  the  author  of 
Lights  and  Shadows  of  Scottish  Life, — all  these  writers, 
either  by  their  birth  or  habits  of  life,  knew  intimately  their 
subject,  from  "  turret  to  foundation-stone."  Hence  one 
and  all  of  thetn,  according  to  the  measure  of  his  power, 
has  turned  his  knowledge  to  account,  and  enlarged,  it  may 
be  said,  the  nation's  knowledge  of  its  own  character.  We 
shall  write  a  leading  article  on  each  of  them,  considered 
solely  as  painters  of  the  poor. 

Without  trenching  on  the  subject  of  these  future  leading 
articles,  we  may  here  observe,  that  it  is  curious  to  remark 
the  difference  between  the  elTect  on  a  mind  of  genius,  of 
absolute  personal  experience,  and  of  that  kind  of  experi- 
ence which  is  merely  intimate,  constant  and  extended  ob- 
servation, under  favourable  circumstances.  Burns,  Hogg, 
Cunninghame,  and  Clare,  were  absolute  peasants,  or  shep- 
herds, or  masons — and  in  all  their  works  there  is,  inde- 
pendently of  their  higher  or  lower  genius,  of  which  we  do 
not  now  speak,  a  souietJting,  that  he  who  does  not  feel  it 
as  perpetually  as  one  hears  an  accent,  must  be  a  block- 
head. Only  by  men  so  born  such  works  could  have  been 
so  conceived  and  executed.  Most  of  the  others  were  "  in 
a  manner  born"  among  the  same  objects  ;  but  only  "  in  a 
manner ;"  and  the  consequence  is,  that  there  is  an  ideal 
spirit  in  all  their  creations,  often  very  beautiful,  but  some- 
times leading  away  from  truth  ;  and  we  desidei-ate  that 
intense  reality  which  we  behold  with  our  own  eyes  in  life. 


164  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

Accordingly,  whatever  rank  such  writings  may  hold  in  the 
literature  of  a  country,  wc  douht  if  they  ever  will  be  domes- 
ticated by  the  firesides  of  that  peasantry,  whose  character 
and  occupation  it  is  their  ambition  to  describe. 

If  this  article  be  getting  tedious,  (and  if  it  had  not  been 
doing  so,  we  should  not  have  shoved  it  away  to  the  other 
side  of  the  table  for  these  last  two  hours,  while  we  dis- 
cussed twin-tumblers,)  any  reader  of  common  sense  knows 
how  to  make  it  short  enough.  Shut  the  magazine, — 
stretch  out  your  pretty  little  feet,  my  dear, — lean  back 
your  head, — don't  mind  though  the  comb  fall  out,  and  let 
your  auburn  tresses  salute  the  floor  behind  the  sofa, — shut 
your  eyes,  and  your  mouth  also,  and  may  you  dream  of 
your  lover!  Mayhap  he  is  not  far  off,  but  come  gliding 
into  the  room,  and  breathes  a  faint  fond  kiss  over  thy 
forehead.  He  blesses  this  long,  sleepy  leading  article ; 
and,  at  every  unawakening  kiss,  means  to  become  a  sub- 
scriber,— yea,  a  contributor. 

Meanwhile,  we  are  oiT  to  Westmoreland  to  speak  of 
cottages.  Often  and  often  have  wo  determined  to  accept 
Mr.  Blackwood's  very  gentlemanly  offer  of  five  hundred 
for  a  Guide  to  the  Lakes.  Gray  the  poet  touched  some  of 
the  scenes  there  with  a  pencil  of  light ;  but  his  are  but 
sketches,  and  few  in  number.  Old  West  was  not  a  little  of 
an  enthusiast,  and  something  more  of  an  antiquary.  But 
we  suspect  he  was  shortsighted,  and  wore  spectacles.  He 
had  a  fancy  too  that  there  were  only  a  few  points,  or  sta- 
tions, from  which  a  country  could  be  satisfactorily  looked 
at  ;  and  during  all  the  intervening  distances,  the  worthy 
priest  whistled  as  he  went  for  want  of  thought.  His  style, 
like  a  beetle,  wheels  its  drowsy  flight,  and  each  paragraph 
reads  like  a  bit  of  a  sermon.  Besides,  the  whole  character 
of  the  country  is  greatly  changed, — and  that  for  the  better, 
— since  his  time,  notwithstanding  the  disappearance  of 
some  old  familiar  faces.  The  captain  who  "  rambled  for 
a  fortnight,"  was  a  half-pay  coxcomb,  and  ought  never  to 
have  had  his  name  printed  any  where  but  in  the  army  list. 
He  would  fain  be  thought  too  a  man  of  gallantry,  and  con- 
fabulates with  every  shepherdess  he  meets,  as  if  she  had 
been  a  Manchester  spinning-jenny.     It  was  lucky  for  him 


COTTAGES.  165 

that  some  Rowland  Long  did  not  kick  him  out  of  the 
county.  Then  came  poor  Green, — a  man  of  taste,  feeling, 
and  genius, — but  as  ignorant  of  the  art  of  bookmaking,  as 
if  he  had  lived  before  the  invention  of  printing.  But  his 
work  is  a  mine,  and  out  of  it  a  Grub  Street  journeyman 
might  manufacture  a  guide  without  leaving  the  sound  of 
Bow-bell.  He  was  followed  by  Mr.  Wordsworth,  who, 
instead  of  a  guide,  presented  the  world  with  a  treatise  on 
the  picturesque,  the  sublime,  and  the  beautiful.  It  is  need- 
less to  say,  that  his  treatise  overflows  with  fine  and  true 
thoughts  and  observations  ;  nor  does  any  man  living  better 
understand,  or  more  deeply  feel,  the  characteristic  qualities 
of  the  scenery  of  Westmoreland.  Yet  it  is  somewhat 
heavy,  even  as  a  philosophical  essay.  For  a  guide,  Mr. 
Wordsworth  lakes  up  a  formidable  position, — namely,  on 
a  cloud  floating  midway  between  the  Great  Gable  and 
Scawfell.  As  maps  are  not  uncommon,  bird's-eye  views 
of  this  kind  are  unnecessary ;  and  when  we  write  our 
guide,  we  shall  stick  to  terra  firma. 

We  have  qualifications  for  such  a  task,  which  neither 
Green  nor  Wordsworth  possessed.  We  are  non-residents 
— absentees.  Had  we  lived  twenty  long  years  on  the 
banks  of  Windermere,  or  Grassmere,  or  Keswick,  or 
Ullswater,  an  impartial  and  reasonable  work  could  no 
more  have  been  expected  from  us,  than  it  has  been  pro- 
duced by  either  of  the  aforesaid  gentlemen.  Stationary 
inhabitants  get  insensibly  embucd  with  all  manner  of  pre- 
judices, and  forget  entirely  the  general  sympathies  of  the 
circulating  population.  They  are  apt  to  think  that  no- 
body can  understand  their  scenery  but  themselves;  and 
laugh  in  your  face  should  you  happen  to  deliver  a  hetero- 
dox opinion  about  a  crag  or  a  coppice,  a  flood  or  a  fell. 
You  must  walk  the  valleys  in  leading-strings — lift  up  your 
eyes  only  when  ordered — and  not  venture  even  an  excla- 
mation till  privileged  by  your  guide's  ejaculatory  "  glo- 
rious !"  Birds  of  passage,  like  us,  wish  to  enjoy  unfettered 
the  kw  months  we  can  pass  in  that  climate;  and  absurd 
as  it  may  seem  to  these  very  imperative  ornithologists,  we 
wing  our  way  at  our  own  sweet  will,  over  hill  and  dale, 
and  perch  at  night  wherever  we  find  a  pleasant  shelter,  in 


166  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

grove  or  single  tree.  This  wc  have  done  for  many  sum- 
mers, and  frequently  following,  and  as  frequently  deviating 
from,  the  sage  advice  of  Messrs.  Wordsworth  and  Southey, 
Professor  Wilson,  Mr.  De  Quincey  the  celebrated  opium- 
eater,  Mr.  Hartley  Coleridge,  the  gifted  son  of  a  gifted 
father,  mild  and  mineralogical,  Mr.  Maltby,  and  our  hos- 
pitable and  intelligent  friend,  Robert  Partridge,  Esq.,  of 
Covey  Cottage, — why,  we  have  made  ourselves  as  tho- 
roughly acquainted  with  that  county  as  any  mother's  son 
of  them  all;  while,  having  no  private  pique,  prejudice, 
or  partiality  whatever  to  gratify  in  regard  to  any  moun- 
tain, lake,  tarn,  force,  gill,  or  bowder-stone,  we  hold  our- 
selves as  the  whole  world  must  do,  far  better  qualified 
than  any  one  of  those  gentlemen  to  be  the  Historian  of 
the  Lakes. 

A  Westmoreland  cottage  has  scarcely  any  resemblance 
to  a  Scotch  one.  A  Scotch  cottage  (in  the  Lowlands)  has 
rarely  any  picturesque  beauty  in  itself — a  narrow  oblong, 
with  steep  thatched-roof,  and  an  ear-like  chimney  at  each 
of  the  two  gable-ends.  Many  of  the  Westmoreland  cot- 
tages would  seem,  to  an  ignorant  observer,  to  have  been 
originally  built  on  a  model  conceived  by  the  finest  poetical 
genius.  In  the  first  place,  they  are  almost  always  built 
precisely  where  they  ought  to  be,  had  the  builder's  prime 
object  been  to  beautify  the  dale  ;  at  least,  so  we  have  often 
felt  in  moods,  when  perhaps  our  emotions  were  uncon- 
sciously soothed  into  complacency  by  the  spirit  of  the 
scene.  Where  the  sedgy  brink  of  the  lake  or  tarn  circles 
into  a  lone  bay,  with  a  low  hill  of  coppice-wood  on  one 
side,  and  a  few  tall  pines  on  the  other,  no — it  is  a  grove  of 
sycamores, — there,  about  a  hundred  yards  from  the  water, 
and  about  ten  above  its  ordinary  level,  peeps  out  from  its 
clieerful  seclusion,  that  prettiest  of  all  hamlets — Braith- 
waite-Fold.  The  hill  behind  is  scarcely  sylvan — yet  it 
lias  many  hazels — a  few  bushes — here  and  there  a  holly 
— and  why  or  wherefore,  who  can  now  tell,  a  grove  of 
enormous  yews.  There  is  sweet  pasturage  among  the 
rocks,  and  as  you  may  suppose  it  a  spring-day,  mild  with- 
out much  sunshine,  there  is  a  bleating  of  lambs,  a  twitter 
of  small  birds,  and  the  deep  coo  of  the  stock-dove.     A 


COTTAGES.  167 

wreath  of  smoke  is  always  a  feature  of  such  a  scene  in 
description  ;  but  here  there  is  now  none,  for  probably  the 
whole  household  are  at  work  in  the  open  air,  and  the  fire, 
since  fuel  is  not  to  be  wasted,  has  been  wisely  suffered  to 
expire  on  the  hearth.  No.  There  is  a  volume  of  smoke, 
as  if  the  chimney  were  in  flame — a  tumultuous  cloud  pours 
aloft,  straggling  and  broken,  through  the  broad  slate  stones 
that  defend  the  mouth  of  the  vomitory  from  every  blast. 
The  matron  within  is  doubtless  about  to  prepare  dinner, 
and  last  year's  rotten  pea-sticks  have  soon  heated  the 
capacious  gridiron.  Let  the  smoke-wreath  melt  away  at 
its  leisure,  and  do  you  admire  along  with  me,  the  infinite 
variety  of  all  those  little  shelving  and  sloping  roofs.  Dear 
— dear  is  the  thatch  to  the  eyes  of  a  son  of  Caledonia,  for 
he  remembers  the  house  in  which  he  was  born;  but  what 
thatch  was  ever  so  beautiful  as  that  slate  from  the  quarry 
of  the  white  moss  ?  Each  one — no — not  each  one — but 
almost  each  one  of  these  little  overhanging  roofs  seems  to 
have  been  slated,  or  repaired  at  least,  in  its  own  separate 
season,  so  various  is  the  lustre  of  lichens  that  bathes  the 
whole,  as  richly  as  ever  rock  was  bathed  fronting  the  sun 
on  the  mountain's  brow.  Here  and  there  is  seen  some 
small  window,  before  unobserved,  curtained  perhaps — for 
the  statesman,  and  the  statesman's  wife,  and  the  states- 
man's daughters,  have  a  taste — a  taste  inspired  by  domestic 
happiness,  which,  seeking  simply  comfort,  unconsciously 
creates  beauty,  and  whatever  its  homely  hand  touches, 
that  it  adorns.  There  would  seem  to  be  many  fireplaces 
in  Braithwaite-Fold,  from  such  a  number  of  chimney- 
pillars,  each  rising  up  to  a  different  altitude  from  a  differ- 
ent base,  round  as  the  bole  of  a  tree — and  elegant,  as  if 
shaped  by  Vitruvius.  To  us,  we  confess  there  is  nothing 
offensive  in  the  most  glaring  white  roughcast,  that  ever 
changed  a  cottage  into  a  patch  of  sunny  snow.  Yet  here 
that  grayish  tempered  unobtrusive  hue  does  certainly  blend 
to  perfection  with  roof,  rock,  and  sky.  Every  instrument 
is  in  tune.  Not  even  in  sylvan  glade,  nor  among  the 
mountain  rocks,  did  wanderer's  eye  ever  behold  a  porch 
of  meeting  tree-stems,  or  reclining  cliffs,  more  gracefully 
festooned,  than  the  porch  from  which  now  issued  the  fairest 


168  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

of  Westmeria's  daughters.  With  one  arm  crossed  before 
her  eyes  in  a  sudden  burst  of  sunshine,  with  the  other 
EUinor  Inman  waves  to  her  little  brother  and  sisters  among 
the  bark-pcclers  in  the  Rydal  woods.  The  graceful  signal 
is  repealed  till  seen,  and  in  a  few  minutes  a  boat  steals 
twinkling  from  the  opposite  side  of  the  lake,  each  tug  of 
the  youthful  rowers  distinctly  heard  through  the  hollow  of 
the  vale.  A  singing  voice  is  heard — but  it  ceases — as  if 
the  singer  were  watching  the  echo — and  is  not  now  the 
picture  complete?     So  too  is  our  article. 


A  MIDSUMMER-DAY'S  DREAM. 

(Blackwood's  Edinburgh  Magazine,  1828.) 


We  have  no  idea  of  what  is  thought  of  us  in  the  fashion- 
able world.  Most  probably  we  are  looked  on  as  a  pretty 
considerable  quiz.  Our  external,  or  personal  appearance, 
is,  we  cheerfully  confess,  somewhat  odd,  both  face  and 
figure.  It  is  not  easy  for  you  to  pass  us  by  on  the  streets 
without  a  stare  at  our  singularity,  or  to  help  turning 
round,  as  soon  as  you  think  you  are  out  of  reach  of  our 
crutch,  which,  by  the  by,  we  sometimes  use  as  a  missile, 
and  can  throw  almost  as  far  as  that  celebrated  gymnast 
of  the  Six  Foot  Club  can  swing  the  thirteen  pound  sledge- 
hammer ;  while,  with  a  placid  smile  of  well-pleased  sur- 
prise, you  wonder  if  that  can  indeed  be  the  veritable  and 
venerable  Christopher  North. 

Such  is  our  natural  and  acquired  modesty,  that  so  far 
from  being  flattered  by  these  proofs  of  public  esteem  and 
popular  favour,  they  fret  and  annoy  us  more  than  we 
care  to  express.  The  truth  is,  we  can  seldom,  on  such 
occasions,  help  feeling  as  if  there  were  a  hole  in  our 
black  silk  stocking,  the  white  peeping  through  like  a  patch 
of  snow — a  shoe  minus  a  silver  buckle — a  button  oft' some 
part  of  our  dress — the  back  part  of  our  hat  in  front — the 
half-expanded  white  rose-bud-tie  of  our  neckcloth,  of  which 
we  are  alike  proud  and  particular,  dissolved  into  two  long 
slips,  which  more  than  any  thing  else  appertaining  to  a 
man's  habiliments,  give  your  person  the  impress  of  a 
weaver  expert  at  the  treddle  and  fly-shuttle — or,  to  us 
who  keep  a  regular  barber  on  the  chin  establishment, 
with  a  salary  of  £80,  worst  suspicion  of  all,  and  if  veri- 
fied to  the  touch,  death  to  that  day,  a  beard !     A  beard ! 

VOL.  r.  15 


170  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

fair  reader,  as  rough  as  the  hrush — naughty  little  mer- 
maid— with  which  you  keep  combing  your  glossy  locks 
in  that  mirror — no,  you  do  not  think  it  flatters — both 
before  you  "  lie  down  in  your  loveliness,"  and  after  you 
rise  up  in  it, — alarmed  by  the  unexpected  and  apparently 
endless  ringing  of  the  breakfast  bell. 

Yet,  we  are  not  so  very  much  of  a  quiz,  after  all ;  and 
considering  how  the  storms  of  many  seasons  have  beat 
against  us,  it  is  astonishing  how  well  we  wear,  both  in 
root,  branch,  and  stem.  We  cannot  help — in  our  pride — 
Heaven  forgive  and  pity  us ! — sometimes  likening  our- 
selves to  an  old  ash  beside  a  church.  There  stands  the 
tree,  with  bark  thick  as  cork,  and  hard  as  iron — hoary 
arms  overshadowing  with  a  pleasant  glimmer — for  his 
leaves  are  beautiful  as  those  of  some  little  plant,  come 
late  and  go  early,  and  are  never  so  umbrageous  as  to 
exclude  the  blue  sky — overshadowing  with  a  pleasant 
glimmer  a  whole  family  of  tombstones, — a  stem  with 
difliculty  circled  by  the  united  arm-lengths  of  some  half- 
dozen  schoolboys,  never  for  a  day  satisfied,  without, 
during  a  pause  of  their  play,  once  more  measuring  the 
giant, — roots,  many  of  them  visible  like  cables  along  the 
gravel-walk  leading  from  the  kirkyard-gate,  where  on 
Sabbath  stands  the  elder  beside  the  plate,  and  each 
Christian  passing  by  droppeth  in  the  tinkling  charity, 
from  rich  man's  gold  to  widow's  mite — and  many  of  them 
hidden,  and  then  reappearing  far  off  from  among  the 
graves — while  the  tap-root,  that  feeds  and  upholds  all  the 
visible  glory,  hath  for  ages  struck  through  the  very 
rock-foundation  of  that  humble  house  of  the  Most  High  I 
Solemn  image  !  and  never  to  be  by  us  remembered,  but 
through  a  haze  of  tears !  How  kindred  the  nature  of 
mirth  and  melancholy  !  What  resemblance  seemeth  that 
tree  now  to  have  to  a  poor,  world-wearied,  and  almost 
life-sick  old  man  !  For  in  a  few  short  years  more,  we 
shall  have  passed  away  like  a  shadow,  and  shall  no  more 
be  any  where  found  ;  but  thou,  many  and  many  a  mid- 
summer, while  centuries  run  their  course,  wilt  hang  thy 
pensive,  "  thy  dim  religious  light" — over  other  and  other 
generations,  while  at  that  mystic  and  awful  table,  whiter 
than  the  unst;iincd  mountain  snow,  sit  almost  in  the  open 


A  midsummer-day's  dream.  171 

air,  for  the  heavens  are  seen  in  their  beauty  through  the 
open  roof  of  that  living  temple,  the  children  of  the  hamlet 
and  the  hall,  partaking  of  the  sacrament, — or,  ere  that 
holiest  rite  be  solemnised  in  simplicity,  all  listening  to  the 
eloquence  of  some  gray-headed  man  inspired  by  his  great 
goodness,  and  with  the  Bible  open  before  him,  making, 
feeble  as  he  seemed  an  hour  ago  before  he  walked  up  into 
the  tent,  the  hearts  of  the  whole  congregation  to  burn 
within  them,  and  the  very  circle  of  the  green  hills  to  ring 
with  joy  ! 

What  a  blessed  order  of  Nature  it  is,  that  the  footsteps 
of  Time  are  "  inaudible  and  noiseless,"  and  that  the 
seasons  of  life  are  like  those  of  the  year,  so  indistin- 
guishably  brought  on,  in  gentle  progress,  and  impercepti- 
bly blended  the  one  with  the  other,  that  the  human  being 
scarcely  knows,  except  from  a  faint  and  not  unpleasant 
feeling,  that  he  is  growing  old  !  The  boy  looks  on  the 
youth,  the  youth  on  the  man,  the  man  in  his  prime  on 
the  gray-headed  sire,  each  on  the  other,  as  on  a  sepa- 
rate existence  in  a  separate  world.  It  seems  sometimes 
as  if  they  had  no  sympathies,  no  thoughts  in  common, 
that  each  smiled  and  wept  on  account  of  things  for  which 
the  other  cared  not,  and  that  such  smiles  and  tears  were 
all  foolish,  idle,  and  most  vain  ;  but  as  the  hours,  days, 
weeks,  months  and  years  go  by,  how  changes  the  one 
into  the  other,  till,  without  any  violence,  lo  !  as  if  close 
together  at  last,  the  cradle  and  the  grave !  In  this  how 
Nature  and  man  agree,  pacing  on  and  on  to  the  com- 
pletion of  a  year — of  a  life !  The  spring  how  soft  and 
tender  indeed,  with  its  buds  and  blossoms,  and  the  blessed- 
ness of  the  light  of  heaven  so  fresh,  young,  and  new,  a 
blessedness  to  feel,  to  hear,  to  see,  and  to  breathe !  Yet 
the  spring  is  often-  touched  by  frost — as  if  it  had  its  own 
winter,  and  is  felt  to  urge  and  be  urged  on  upon  that 
summer,  of  which  the  green  earth,  as  it  murmurs,  seems 
to  have  some  secret  forethought.  The  summer,  a§  it  lies 
on  the  broad  blooming  bosom  of  the  earth,  is  yet  faintly 
conscious  of  the  coming-on  of  autumn  with  "  sere  and 
yellow  leaf," — the  sunshine  owns  the  presence  of  the  shade 
— and  there  is  at  times  a  pause  as  of  melancholy  amid 
the   transitory  mirth !     Autumn   comes  with  its  full  or 


172  VILSON's  miscellaneous  M'RITINGS. 

decaying  ripeness,  and  its  colours  grave  or  gorgeous — 
the  noise  of  song  and  sickle — of  the  wheels  of  wains — 
and  all  the  busy  toils  of  prophetic  man  gathering  up 
against  the  bare  cold  winter,  ])rovision  for  the  body  and 
for  the  soul !  Winter  !  and  cold  and  bare  as  fancy  pic- 
tured— yet  not  without  beauty  and  joy  of  its  own,  while 
something  belonging  to  the  other  seasons  that  are  fled, 
some  gloamings  as  of  spring-light,  and  flowers  fair  as  of 
spring  among  the  snow — meridians  bright  as  summer 
morns,  and  woods  bearing  the  magnificent  hues  of  autumn 
on  into  the  Christmas  frost — clothe  the  old  year  with 
beauty  and  with  glory,  not  his  own — and  just  so  with 
old  age,  the  winter,  the  last  season  of  man's  ever-varying, 
yet  never  wholly  changed  life! 

Then  blessings  on  the  sages  and  the  bards  who,  in  the 
strength  of  the  trust  that  was  within  them,  have  feared  not 
to  crown  old  age  with  a  diadem  of  flowers  and  light ! 
Shame  on  the  satirists,  who,  in  their  vain  regret,  and 
worse  ingratitude,  have  sought  to  strip  it  of  all  "  impulses 
of  soul  and  sense,"  and  leave  it  a  sorry  and  shivering 
sight,  almost  too  degraded  for  pity's  tears  !  True,  that  to 
outward  things  the  eye  may  be  dim,  the  ear  deaf,  and  the 
touch  dull ;  but  there  are  lights  that  die  not  away  with  the 
dying  sunbeams — there  are  sounds  that  cease  not  when 
the  singing  of  birds  is  silent — there  are  motions  that  still 
stir  the  soul,  delightful  as  the  thrill  of  a  daughter's  hand 
pressing  her  father's  knee  in  prayer ;  and  therefore,  how 
calm,  how  happy,  how  reverend,  beneath  unolfcnded 
Heaven,  is  the  head  of  old  age  !  Walk  on  the  mountain, 
wander  down  the  valley,  enter  the  humble  hut, — the 
scarcely  less  humble  kirk, — and  you  will  know  how 
sacred  a  thing  is  the  hoary  hair  that  lies  on  the  temples 
of  him  who,  during  his  long  journey,  forgot  not  his  Maker, 
and  feels  that  his  old  age  shall  be  renewed  into  immortal 
youth ! 

"  That  strain  I  licard  was  of  a  liiplicr  mood !" 

But  now  we  must  wake  a  lowlier  measure  ; — and,  gentle 
reader !  thou  wilt  not  refuse  to  go  with  us,  who,  in  com- 
parison with  thee  are  old,  for  thou  art  in  thy  prime — and 


A  midsummer-day's  dream.  173 

be  not,  we  implore  thee,  a  prodigal  of  its  blessings — into 
the  little  humming  room,  whose  open  window  looks  over 
the  lilacs  and  laburnums  now  in  all  their  glory  almost 
painful  to  look  on,  so  dazzling  are  they  in  their  blue  and 
yellow  burnished  array — and  while  away  an  hour  with — 
start  not  at  the  name — the  very  living  flesh-and-blood 
Christopher  North,  whose  voice  has  often  been  with  thee, 
as  the  voice  of  a  solemn  or  sportive  spirit,  when  rivers  and 
seas  rolled  and  flowed  between,  he  lying  under  the  birch- 
Iree's,  and  thou,  perhaps,  under  the  Banana's  shade !  Let 
us  both  be  silent.  Look  at  those  faces  on  the  wall — how 
mild  !  how  meek !  how  magnificent  !  You  know  them, 
by  an  instinct  for  beauty  and  grandeur,  to  be  the  shadows 
of  the  spirits  whose  works  have  sanctified  your  sleeping 
and  your  waking  dreams.  The  great  poets ! — Ay,  you 
may  gaze  till  twilight  on  that  bust  !  Blind  Melesigines  ! — 
But  hark  !  the  front-door  bell  is  ringing — then  tap,  tap,  tap, 
tap — and  lo !  a  bevy  of  beauty,  matrons,  and  maids,  who 
have  all  been  a-Maying,  and  come  to  lay  their  wreaths  and 
garlands  at  the  old  man's  feet  !  Is  our  age  deserted  and 
forsaken — childless,  wifeless  though  it  be — for  the  whole 
world  knows  that  we  are  a  bachelor — when  subjected,  in 
the  benignity  of  Providence,  to  such  visionary  visitations 
as  these]  Visionary  call  them  not — though  lovelier  than 
poet's  dreams  beside  the  Castalian  fountain — for  these  are 
livinw  locks  of  auburn  braided  over  a  living  brow  of 
snow — these  tresses,  black  in  their  glossy  richness  as  the 
raven's  wing,  are  no  work  of  glamoury — no  shadow  she 
with  the  light-blue  laughing  eyes — she,  whose  dark  orbs 
are  filled  with  the  divine  melancholy  of  genius, 

"  Like  Lady  of  the  Merc, 
Sole-sitting  by  the  shores  of  old  Romance," 

bears,  in  her  soul-fraught  beauty,  a  soft,  sweet,  familiar 
Christian  name — but,  lo  !  like  fair  sea-birds,  they  ail  gather 
together,  floating  around  the  lord  of  the  mansion — and  is 
not  Buchanan-Lodge  the  happiest,  the  pleasantest  of  dwell- 
ings, and  old  Christopher  North  the  happiest  and  the 
pleasantest  of  men? 

Perhaps,  to  see  and  hear  us  in  another  character  of  our 
1.5* 


174  Wilson's  miscellaneous  wkitings. 

perfection,  you  should  mistake  the  gateway  of  the  Lodge 
for  that  of  some  other  sylvan  abode,  and  come  upon  us  as 
we  are  silting  under  the  blossom-fall  of  a  laburnum ;  or 
lying  carelessly  diffused  in  a  small  circle  of  flower- fringed 
green-sward,  like  Love  among  the  roses.  Our  face,  then, 
has  no  expression  but  that  of  mildness — you  see  a  man 
who  would  not  hurt  even  a  wasp — our  intellectual  is  merged, 
not  lost,  in  our  moral  being — and  if  you  liave  read  Taci- 
tus, you  feel  the  full  meaning  of  his  beautiful  sentence 
about  Agricola, — "  Bonum  virum  facile  crederes,  magnum 
libenter." 

Awaking  suflicicntly  to  see  that  someone  is  present  be- 
fore us,  wc  motion  the  light  or  shadow  to  lie  down,  and 
begin  conversing  so  benignly  and  so  wisely,  that  the 
stanger  feels  at  home  as  if  in  his  birth[)lace,  even  as  a 
son  returned  from  afar  to  his  father.  Tlie  cheerful  still- 
ness of  the  retirement,  ibr  there  is  no  stir  but  of  birds  and 
bees, — the  sea-murmur  is  not  heard  to-day,  and  the  city 
bells  are  silent, — is  felt  to  be  accordant  wiiii  the  spirit  of 
our  green  old  age,  and  as  the  various  philosophy  of  human 
life  overflows  the  garden,  our  visiter  regards  us  now  as  the 
indolent  and  indulgent  Epicurus — now  as  the  severe  and 
searching  Stagy  rite — now  as  the  poet-sage,  on  whose  lips 
in  infancy  fell  that  shower  of  bees,  the  divine  Plato — now 
Pythagoras,  the  silent  and  the  silencing — now  "  that  old 
man  eloquent,"  Socrates,  the  loving  and  beloved  ;  and  un- 
consciously at  the  close  of  some  strain  of  our  discourse  he 
recites  to  himself  that  fine  line  of  Byron, 

"  Well  hast  thou  said,  Atlicna's  wisest  son  I" 

Or,  were  you  to  fall  in  with  us  as  we  were  angling  our 
way  down  the  Tweed,  on  some  half-spring  lialf-summer 
day,  some  day  so  made  up  of  cloud  and  sunshine  that  you 
know  not  whether  it  be  light  or  dark, — 

"  That  beautiful  uncertain  weather, 
When  gloom  and  glory  meet  together," 

some  day,  when  at  this  hour  the  air  is  alive  with  dancing 
insects,  and  at  that  very  gauzy  and  gaudy  winglet  hushed 


A  midsummer-day's  dueam.  175 

— some  day  on  which  you  could  wander  wild  as  a  red  deer 
over  the  high  mountains  and  by  the  shores  of  the  long- 
winding  loch,  or  sit  fixed  as  the  cushat  in  the  grove,  and 
eye  the  ruins  of  an  old  castle; — were  you  to  fall  in  with 
us  on  such  a  forenoon,  by  the  pool  below  Nidpath,  or  the 
meadow-mound  of  sweet  Cardrona-mains,  or  the  ford  of 
Traquair,  near  the  lively  Inverleithen,  or  the  sylvan  dens 
of  Dryburgh,  or  the  rocky  rushings  of  the  Trows,  or — 
but  sit  down  beneath  the  umbrage  of  that  sycamore — 
heavens  !  what  a  tree  ! — and  be  thou  Charles  Cotton  and 
we  Isaac  Walton,  and  let  both  of  us  experience  that  high 
and  humane  delight  which  youth  and  age  do  mutually 
communicate,  when  kindness  is  repaid  with  gratitude,  and 
love  with  reverence. 

Yet  even  as  we  hobble  along  the  city  street — the  street 
of  Princes — with  one  or  two  filial  youngsters  at  our  side 
— for  old  men  are  our  aversion,  so  nut-deaf  are  they,  so 
sand-blind,  so  perverse,  and  so  cell-bound  are  their  souls 
— our  company  and  our  converse  is  not  undelightful, 
pitched  as  the  latter  then  is,  on  a  low  but  lively  key,  like 
the  twitter  of  a  bird,  even  of  a  sparrow,  who,  let  the  world 
say  what  it  will,  chirps  a  pleasant  song  as  he  frisks  along 
the  eaves,  and  both  in  love  and  war — though  there,  alas  ! 
the  parallel  between  us  falls  to  the  ground — yields  to  no 
brother  of  his  size  in  the  whole  aviary  of  nature.  Or  if 
sparrow  please  you  not,  why  then  we  are  even  as  the  swal- 
low, lover  too  of  the  abodes  of  men — a  true  household 
bird — and  seeming,  as  he  wheels  in  the  sunshine,  to  be 
ever  at  his  pastime,  yet  all  the  while  gathering  sustenance 
for  the  nest  he  loves,  and  never  so  happy  as  when  sitting 
in  his  "  auld  clay  biggin,"  breast  to  breast — but  there 
again,  wo  is  us  !  fails  the  similitude — breast  to  breast, 
with  his  white-throated  mate,  whom  in  another  month,  he 
will  accompany,  along  with  their  full-fledged  family,  over 
the  wide  wide  seas,  and,  their  voyage  ended,  renew  their 
loves  beneath  the  eaves  of  other  human  dwellings,  afar 
off  and  in  foreign  lands,  for  all  their  life  is  love,  and  still 
they  make 

"  Their  annual  visit  round  the  globe, 
Companions  of  the  spring." 


176  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

Nay,  you  would  bo  pleased  to  sit  beside,  or  before,  or 
behind  us,  in  pit  or  box  of  our  theatre?,  and  list  our  genial 
culogiums  on  Murray,  and  Mackay,  and  Mason,  and  Stan- 
ley, and  Pritchard  ;  or  him  from  London  town,  the  inimi- 
table, for  the  name  of  the  actor  is  lost  in  that  of  Long 
Tom.  No  critics,  it  is  well  known,  are  we ;  but,  when 
a  true  son  or  daughter  of  nature,  "  some  well -graced  actor 
decks  the  stage,"  the  best  of  our  remarks  might  grace  the 
Journal.  Yea,  the  very  beauty  of  the  Siddons  herself 
becomes  more  starlike — for,  mind  ye,  a  star  is  ever  gentle 
in  its  brightest  glow, — as  if  kindling  before  your  eyes  in 
the  fine  enthusiasm  of  our  praise.  Or,  if  Pasta,  or  Paton 
— Eliza  the  modest  and  the  musical — hush  the  room,  it  is 
pleasant  to  see  old  Christopher  North  sitting  almost  ghost- 
like amid  the  pathos  !  In  his  younger  days,  the  harp  was 
the  instrument  on  which  he  loved  to  play,  but  now  he 
seldom  touches  a  string;  yet  when  beauty  with  a  smile 
hints  the  wish  to  hear  some  ancient  melody,  the  old  man 
is- not  unwilling,  in  a  rare  hour,  to  try  his  trembling  hand, 
repaid  at  the  close  of  the  Broom  o'  the  Cowdenknows,  or 
the  Flowers  o'  the  Forest — nor  has  his  voice  been  silent — 
repaid,  oh,  soft-eyed  daughter  of  the  son  of  the  dead  bro- 
ther of  our  youth,  a  thousand  times  repaid  by  one  single 
tear  ! 

Or  seek  you  the  saloon,  "  Grandeur's  most  magnificent 
saloon,"  and  mingle,  mingle,  mingle,  with  the  restless  and 
glittering  fiow  of  fashionable  life,  a  sea  of  tossing  plumes! 
Why  even  there,  you  may  perchance  see  Christopher 
sitting  all  by  himself  in  a  nook — silent  but  not  sad — grave 
but  not  gloomy — critical  but  not  censorious — in  love  with 
the  few,  in  liking  with  the  many — in  good-will  with  all. 
llis  gracious  eye  is  not  averted  even  from  the  flying  waltz; 
for,  "  IToni  soit  qui  mal  y  pcnse,"  and  if  yours  be  the 
heart  of  a  man,  what  evil  I  bought  can  be  inspired  into  it 
by  the  breath  of  innocence!  Youth  is  the  season  of  love 
and  joy,  and  inhale  therefore  into  thy  inmost  soul  the  bliss 
of  that  balmy  breath,  and  hug  to  thy  inmost  soul  the  ideal 
embrace,  so  faint — so  very  faint — of  that  young  virgin, 
whose  waist  now  thine  arm  is  privileged  blamelessly  to 
encircle  ;  for  where  virtue  glides  in  all  her  blushing  beauty, 
the  touch  even  of  passion's  self  shall  be  reverential,  and 


A  midsummer-day's  dream.  177 

that  bright  girl  and  bright  boy  shall  part  as  they  met,  as 
pure  in  thought  as  two  doves,  that  happen  to  intersect 
each  other's  flight,  and  after  a  kw  airy  evolutions  in  the 
sunshine,  flee  away,  each  to  its  own  place  of  pleasure  or 
rest. 

Or,  need  we  allude  to  ourselves  sitting  by  the  ingle- 
cheek,  so  crouse  and  canty,  at  the  sober — yea,  the  sober 
orgies  of  our  Noctes  Ambrosiana;  1  We  are  no  cameleons 
— we  neither  feed  on  air,  nor  change  our  colour.  Of 
much  of  the  Glenlivet  we  gulp,  the  parent  barley  is  yet 
unborn — the  only  ether  we  imbibe  is  the  ether  of  the  ima- 
gination—opium, in  drop  or  pill,  touches  not  our  lips,  but 
in  the  feast  of  fancy  ;  though  one  choice  spirit  doth  occa- 
sionally sit  and  shine  among  us,  to  whom  that  drug  is 
dear — and  the  oyster-beds  along  the  sounding  shores  of 
the  mighty  sea,  have  reason  to  bless  their  stars  that  the 
accounts  they  have  from  the  fishermen,  of  the  innumerous 
barrels  so  unmercifully  emptied  in  Picardy,  are  apocry- 
phal. See  there  is  our  outstretched  arm,  and  on  the  point 
of  that  little  finger — not  unfrequently  turned  up  so — lies 
untrembling  the  drop  of  the  mountain-dew !  So  steady  is 
every  sinew  of  sobriety — who  often  rises  with  the  sun,  and 
often  sits  up  for  him  too — the  sun,  who,  washed  and 
dressed  almost  in  a  moment,  takes  a  stage  by  steam  before 
breakfast,  and  whom  you  see  dining  on  a  dessert  of  fruits 
of  all  glorious  sorts  and  sizes  about  midday,  right  over 
your  head,  sitting  beneath  the  Deas,  in  the  blue  chamber, 
ceiling'd  and  fretted  by  the  sky  !  Not  brighter  is  that 
blue  chamber  of  the  sun,  than  the  parlour  where  we  hold 
our  Parliament — North  in  the  chair,  and  unlike  that  solemn 
silence  in  St.  Stephens,  a  speaker  indeed!  No  rat  or 
radical  from  rotten  borough  here — each  of  us  member  for 
a  county,  Lowland  or  Highland, — the  Representatives  of 
Scotland — ay,  of  England,  too, — for  lo  !  "  England  sends 
her  men,  of  men  the  chief" — Seward  of  Christchurch, 
and  Buller  of  Brazennose  ; — and  as  for  Ireland,  the  green 
and  glorious, — lo  !  the  bold,  the  dauntless  O'Doherty, — 
the  adjutant  good-at-need, — the  ensign,  with  whom  no 
hope  is  forlorn, — the  standard-bearer,  who  plants  the  staff" 
of  joy  in  the  centre  of  our  table,  in  a  hole  bored  by  the 
gleg  gimlet  of  his  nation's  wit,  so  that  the  genial  board  is 


178  -Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

overshadowed  by  its  bright  emblazonry,  and  at  every 
rustle  in  its  folds,  Tickler  seems  to  rise  in  stature,  Macra- 
bin  to  become  more  and  more  the  grave  Covenanter, 
Mullion's  mirth  to  grow  broader  as  the  crump  farl  on  the 
gridiron,  and  our  shepherd  to  shine  like  a  rowan-tree  in 
autumn,  brightening  the  greensward  where  lie  his  sheep- 
like lambs.  Invinciblcs  all  !  It  is  indeed  a  bright,  a  be- 
nign, a  beautiful  little  circular  world,  inhabited  but  by  a 
few  choicest  spirits — some  of  them — oh  !  may  we  dare  to 
hope  it — even  on  earth  immortal  !  The  winged  words — 
some  like  bees  and  some  like  birds — keep  working  and 
lurking,  stinging  and  singing,  wherever  they  alight- — yet 
no  pernicious  pain  in  the  wound,  no  cruel  enchantment  in 
the  strain.  The  winged  words — bee  or  bird-like — are 
still  murmuring  among  flowers, — 

"  Flowers,  worthy  of  Paradise,  which  not  nice  art 
In  beds  and  curious  knots,  but  nature  boon 
Pour'd  forth  profuse  on  hill,  and  dale,  and  plain, 
Both  where  tlie  morning  sun  first  warmly  smote 
The  open  field,  and  where  the  unpierced  shade 
Imbrown'd  the  noontide  bowers  !" 

Some  faint  echo  of  the  sounds  that  then  circle  round  the 
inner  shrine,  not  unheard  by  the  outward  world,  makes  its 
heart  to  beat  or  burn  within  it,  its  nerves  to  tingle,  or 
haply  even  brings  the  dim  haze  across  its  eye.  The 
mean  and  malignant  are  cowed  like  poultry  by  the  crow- 
ing of  a  far-off  game-cock,  on  his  airy  walk  on  a  pleasant 
hill-farm.  The  son  of  genius  pining  in  the  shade — Oh ! 
why  should  genius  ever  pine  beneath  the  sun,  moon,  and 
stars? — feels  encouragement  breathed  into  his  spirit,  and 
knows  that  one  day  or  other  he  shall  emerge  from  the 
gloom  in  glory,  cheered  by  the  cordial  strain  of  us  kindred 
spirits,  who,  one  and  all,  will  take  him  by  the  hand,  the 
mirthful  as  well  as  the  melancholy,  for  their  likings  and 
loves  are  the  same,  and  place  him  among  the  '0|xoti(xoi, 
the  equal-honoured,  the  sacred  band,  brothers  all,  who,  to 
the  sound  of  flutes  and  soft  recorders,  in  firmest  phalanx 
move  on  in  music  to  everlasting  fame. 

We  were  some  half  hour  ago  speaking  of  the  fashion- 
able world — were  wc  not — of  Edinburgh  ?     Why,  in  Edin- 


A  midsummer-day's  dream.  179 

burgh,  there  is  par-excellence  no  fashionable  world.  We 
are — as  the  King — God  bless  him — once  very  well  ob- 
served, when  all  we  Sawnies  happened  to  be  dressed  in 
our  Sunday's  best — a  nation  of  gentlemen  ; — and  in  a 
nation  of  gentlemen,  you  have  no  notion  how  difficult,  or 
rather  how  impossible,  it  is  to  make  a  fashionable  world. 
VVe  are  all  so  vastly  pleasant  and  polite — low-breeding 
among  us  is  so  like  high-breeding  in  any  other  less  distin- 
guished district  of  the  globe, — that  persons  who  desire  to 
be  conspicuous  for  the  especial  elegance  of  their  manners, 
or  the  especial  splendour  of  their  blow-outs,  know  not  how 
to  set  about  it, — and  let  the  highest  among  them  be  as 
fashionable  as  they  will,  they  will  hear  an  army  of  chair- 
men "  gurgling  Gaelic  half-way  down  their  throats,"  as 
they  keep  depositing  dowager  after  dowager,  matron  after 
matron,  mawsey  after  mawsey,  virgin  after  virgin,  all  with 
feathers  "  swailing  in  their  bonnets,"  and  every  father's 
daughter  among  them  more  fashionable  than  another,  in 
the  gas-lighted  hall  of  a  palace  in  Moray  Place,  inhabited 
by  a  most  fashionable  Doubleyou  Ess — about  a  dozen  of 
whose  ofispring  of  various  sizes  and  sexes,  at  each  new 
arrival,  keep  glowering  and  gufiawing  through  the  bannis- 
ters on  the  nursery  story,  the  most  fashionable  little  dirty 
red-headed  dears  that  ever  squalled  in  a  scrubbing-tub  on 
the  Plotter's  Saturday  Night, — while  ever  and  anon  fashion- 
able servant  maids,  some  in  female  curiosity — proof  of 
an  enlightened  mind — and  others,  of  whom  it  appears, 
"  the  house-affairs  do  call  them  hence,"  keep  tripping  to 
and  fro,  one  with  a  child's  night-cap  in  her  hand,  and  an- 
other with  something  else  equally  essential  to  its  comfort 
before  getting  into  bed — while  it  inspires  you  with  a  fine 
dash  of  melancholy,  to  behold  on  such  a  night  of  fashion- 
able festivities,  here  and  there  among  the  many  men  appa- 
rently butlers,  footmen,  valets,  waiters,  and  so  forth — 
many  of  them  fashionably  powdered  with  oat  and  barley 
meal  of  the  finest  quality — some  in  and  some  out  of  livery, 
blue  breeches  and  red,  black  breeches  and  gray — you  are 
inspired,  we  say,  with  a  fine  spirit  of  melancholy,  to  dis- 
cern, among  "  these  liveried  angels  lackeying  you,"  the 
faces  of  Sawlies,  well  known  at  fashionable  funerals,  and 
who  smile  upon  you  as  you  move  from  room  to  room,  as 


180  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

if  to  recall  to  your  remembrance  the  last  time  you  had  the 
satisfaction  of  being  preceded  by  them  into  that  place  of 
fashionable  resort — the  Gray  Friars'  Churchyard — • 

"  Tiioso  fnnoral-bakcd  mates 
Do  coldly  furnisli  up  the  supper  tables." 

Another  consequence  of  our  being  a  nation  of  gentlemen 
is,  that  in  all  broad  Scotland  there  is  no  such  thing  as — a 
man  of  ton.  An  occasional  puppy — a  not  unfrequent 
prig — is  to  be  met  with,  in  persons  ambitious  of  being  distin- 
guished among  a  nation  of  gentlemen,  each  by  the  posses- 
sion of  his  own  peculiarity,  in  itself  perhaps  more  becom- 
ing a  cur  than  a  Christian,  a  barber's  block  than  a  head 
with  tongue  and  brains.  But  a  man  of  ton,  we  repeat,  is, 
in  such  a  nation,  an  impossible  production  ;  and  we  appeal 
to  our  readers,  if  they  ever  beheld  that  phenomenon  in 
Edinburgh, — or  even  in  Glasgow,  where,  on  the  given 
principle,  a  few  might  reasonably  enough  be  expected  to 
•be  found  in  winter  quarters  about  the  Gorbals,  or  summer 
ones,  down  at  the  Auld-kirk, — (so,  in  the  west,  do  they 
pronounce  Innerkip,) — or  the  Largs. 

There  is  another  general  consequence  of  our  being  a 
nation  of  gentlemen,  which  deserves  notice  in  this  patriotic 
periodical.  Here  no  man  is  permitted  to  pride  himself  on 
his  superior  skill  and  excellence  in  the  broad,  open-day 
violation  of  all  the  bonds  and  duties  of  life.  This  of  itself 
prevents  the  appearance  in  a  century  of  a  single  man  of 
ton.  We  do  not  mean  to  say,  that  there  is  no  wickedness 
among  us  in  this  pleasant  place, — no  vice, — no  licentious- 
ness,— no  dishonour.  But  they  hide  their  heads  in  the 
dark.  Here  the  adultress  does  not  show  her  Dice — brazen 
or  blushing  with  paint.  Were  she  to  do  so,  there  are  no 
men  of  ton  to  caper  by  her  side,  on  horseback,  along 
street,  or  round  square,  or  lead  her,  at  concert,  assembly, 
or  play,  up  the  fair  lane  of  stainless  matrons,  and  virgins 
pure,  whose  ears  abhor  the  meretricious  rustle  of  the 
wanton's  flaunting  habiliments.  This  is  not  fashionable 
among  the  nation  of  gentlemen,  fashionable  as  we  are. 
The  lady  who  should  act  thus,  would  soon  find  herself  in 
a  nunnery,  and  the  gentleman  would  pay  a  visit  to  the 
great  seat  of  the  riband  tradf. 


A  MIDSUMMER-DAV'S  DREAM.  181 

The  Queen  of  the  North  is  of  an  excellent  size ;  and 
we  hope  that,  during  our  day,  she  will  not  greatly  expand 
her  dimensions.  There  ought  always  to  be  a  bright  em- 
broidered belt  of  villas,  a  mile  broad  at  least,  between  her 
and  the  sea ;  and  surely  she  will  not  tread  upon  the  feet 
of  the  old  Pentlands.  We  could  heave  the  pensive  sigh — 
almost  drop  the  pensive  tear — to  remember  the  hundreds 
of  sweet,  snug,  sheltered,  cozy  cottages — not  thatched, 
but  slated — with  lattice-windows,  and  haply  Venetian- 
blinds — front-trelliced — and  with  gable-end  rich  in  its 
jargonelle,  "  all  wede  away"  by  the  irresistible  "  march 
of  stone  and  lime,"  charging  in  close  street,  and  then 
taking  up  position  in  hollow  square,  on  every  knoll  and 
brae  in  the  neighbourhood.  How  many  pretty  little  blos- 
soming gardens  does  the  spring  now  in  vain  desiderate  1 
Are  there  any  such  things  novv-a-days,  we  wonder,  as 
retired  citizens?  Old,  decent,  venerable  husband  and 
wife,  living  about  a  mile,  or  two  miles  even,  out  of  town, 
always  to  be  found  at  home  when  you  stroll  out  to  see 
how  the  worthy  pair  are  getting  on,  either  sitting  each 
on  an  opposite  arm-chair,  with  a  bit  sma'  lassie,  grand- 
child perhaps,  or  perhaps  only  an  orphan  servant  girl, 
treated  as  if  she  were  a  grandchild,  between  them  on  a  stool, 
and  who  was  evidently  reading  the  Bible  as  you  entered  ; 
or  the  two,  not  far  from  one  another  in  the  garden — he 
pruning,  it  may  be,  the  fruit-trees,  for  he  is  a  great  gar- 
dener, and  rejoices  in  the  golden  pippin — she  busy  with 
the  flowers,  among  which  we  offer  you  a  pound  for  every 
weed,  so  exquisitely  fine  the  care  that  tends  those  gor- 
geous beds  of  anemones  and  polyanthuses,  or  pinks,  and 
carnations,  on  which  every  dewy  morning  Flora  descends 
from  heaven  to  brighten  the  glory  with  her  smiles !  But 
we  are  relapsing  into  the  pathetic,  so  let  us  remark  that  a 
capital  should  always  be  proportioned  to  a  country — and 
verily,  Scotland  carries  hers,  like  a  head  with  a  fine 
phrenological  developemcnt,  on  a  broad  back  and  shoul- 
ders, and  looks  stately  among  the  nations.  And  never — 
never — this  is  our  morning  and  evening  prayer — never 
may  she  need  to  hang  down  that  head  in  shame,  but  may 
she  lift  it  up,  crested  with  glory,  till  the  blue  skies  them- 

VOL.  I.  16 


182  milson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

selves  shall  be  no  more — till  cease  the  ebbing  and  the 
flowing  of  that  sun-bright  sea  ! 

But  never  in  all  her  annals  were  found  together  Shame 
and  Scotland.  Sir  William  Wallace  has  not  left  Shame 
one  single  dark  cavern  wherein  to  hide  her  head.  Be 
thou  bold,  free,  patriotic,  as  of  old,  gathered  up  in  thyself 
within  thy  native  mountains,  yet  hospitable  to  the  high- 
souled  Southron,  as  thou  wert  ever  wont  to  be  even  in  the 
days  of  Bannockburn  and  Floddcn  ! — To  thine  eye,  as  of 
old,  be  dear  each  slip  of  blue  sky,  glimpsing  through  the 
storm — each  cloud-cleaving  hill-top,  Bennevis,  Cairngorm, 
Cruachan — Rannoch's  black,  bright,  purple  heather-sea — 
Cowrie's  Carse,  beloved  of  Ceres — and  Clydesdale,  to 
Pomona  dear — spire  pointing  to  heaven  through  the  dense 
city-cloud,  or  from  the  solitary  brae — baronial  hall  or 
castle  sternly  dilapidating  in  slow  decay — humble  hut, 
that  sinks  an  unregarded  ruin,  like  some  traditionless 
cairn — or  shieling,  that,  like  the  nest  of  the  small  brown 
moorland  bird,  is  renewed  every  spring,  lasting  but  one 
summer  in  its  remotest  glen !  To  thine  ears,  as  of 
old,  be 

"  Dear  the  wild  music  of  the  mountain  wave, 
Breaking  along  the  shores  of  liberty  !" 

Dear  the  thunder  of  the  cataract  heard,  when  the  sky  is 
without  a  cloud,  and  the  rain  is  over  and  gone — heard  by 
the  deer-stalker,  standing  like  a  shadow,  leagues  off,  or 
moving  for  hours  slow  as  a  shadow,  guided  by  the  antlers. 
Dear  be  the  yell  of  the  unseen  eagle  in  the  sky,  and  dear, 
where  "  no  falcon  is  abroad  for  prey,"  the  liappy  moaning 
of  the  cushat  in  the  grove — the  lilting  of  the  lintwhite 
among  broom  and  brier — the  rustle  of  the  wing  of  the 
lonesome  robin-red-breast  in  the  summer  woods — his  sweet 
pipe  on  the  barn  or  byrc-riggin'  in  autumn,  through  all 
winter  long  his  peck  at  the  casement,  and  his  dark-eyed 
hopping  round  the  hearth  !  Be  thine  ever  a  native,  not 
an  alien  spirit,  and  ever  on  thy  lips,  sweet  Scotia!  may 
there  hang  the  music  of  thy  own  Doric  tongue. 

Nor  vain  the  hope,  for  it  is  in  heaven  !  A  high  philo- 
sophy has  gone  out  from  the  sages  of  thy  cities  into  the 
loneliest  recesses  of  the  hills.     The  student  sits  by  the 


A  midsummer-day's  dream.  183 

ingle  of  his  father's  straw-roofed  shed,  or  lies  in  leisure, 
released  from  labour,  among  the  broomy  banks  and  braes 
of  the  vvimpling  burn,  and  pores  and  meditates  over  the 
pages  of  Reid,  and  Furgusson,  and  Stewart,  and  Brown, 
— wise  benefactors  of  the  race.  Each  vale  "  sings  aloud 
old  songs,  the  music  of  the  heart," — the  poetry  of  Burns 
the  deathless  shall  brighten  for  ever  the  cottar's  hearth — 
Campbell  is  by  all  beloved — and  the  high  harp  of  Scott 
shall  sound  for  ever  in  all  thy  halls.  And  more  solemn, 
more  sacred,  all  over  the  land  are  heard, — 

"  Those  strains  that  once  did  sweet  in  Sion  glide," 

the  songs,  mournful  in  their  majesty,  of  the  wo-denouncing, 
sin-dooming  prophets  of  old,  of  which  the  meanings  are 
still  profound  to  the  ear  of  nations  that  listen  to  them 
aright — for  there  is  a  taint  at  the  core  of  all  their  hearts, 
and  not  one  single  land  on  the  face  of  the  whole  earth, 
strong  as  it  may  be  in  its  simplicity,  that  hath  not  reason 
to  dread  that  one  day  or  other  may  be  its  own — the  doom 
of  the  mighty  Babylon  ! 

But  lo !  a  soft  sweet  smile  of  showery  sunshine — and 
our  hearts  are  touched  by  a  sudden  mirth. 

"  Then  said  I,  Master,  pleasant  is  this  place." 

A  pleasanter  city  is  nowhere  to  be  seen — neither  sea-shore 
nor  inland,  but  between  the  two,  and  uniting  the  restless- 
ness of  the  one  situation  with  the  quietness  of  the  other — 
there  green  waves  leaping  like  furies,  here  green  hills 
fixed  like  fate, — there  white  sails  gliding,  here  white  tents 
pitched, — there — you  can  hardly  see  it  even  with  a  tele- 
scopic eye — the  far-off  Bass,  from  whose  cliffs,  perhaps 
at  this  very  moment,  the  flashing  fowling-piece  has  scared 
a  yelling  cloud  of  sea-birds, — there  the  near  Castle-Rock 
thundering  a  royal  salute,  for  it  is  the  anniversary  of  the 
birthday  of  our  most  gracious  and  glorious  king, — there 
masts  unnumbered,  here  roofs  multitudinous, — there  Nep- 
tune, here  Apollo, — together,  sea,  sun,  and  heaven,  all  in 
one — a  perfect  poem  ! 

Verily  it  is  a  pleasant  place,  and  pleasant  are  the  people 
who  inhabit  it,  through  all  their  grades.     The  students  at 


184  WILSOiS's  MISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS. 

the  University  are  pleasant — so  are  the  professors.  The 
shopkeepers  are  pleasant — so  are  the  citizens  in  general, 
especially  such  of  them  as  are  Tories — though  for  thy 
sake,  dear  friend, — now  at  far-off  Cacra-bank — we  could 
almost  become  a  little  \\'higgish — pleasant  are  the  advo- 
cates— pleasant  every  W.  S. — arc  not  the  ministers  of  the 
city  pleasant  as  they  are  pious — and  were  not  those  plea- 
sant polemicals  all,  about  the  Apocrypha?  Pleasant  are 
the  country  gentlemen  who  come  hither  to  educate  their 
sons  and  daughters,  forgetful  of  corn  bills — and  pleasant, 
O,  Edina !  are  the  strangers  within  thy  gates !  Up  and 
down,  down  and  up  the  various  steps  of  thy  society  do  we 
delight  to  crutch  it ;  nor  can  we  complain  of  a  cold  recep- 
tion from  the  palace  in  Moray  Place  to  the  box  at  New- 
ington.  Yea,  verily,  Edinburgh  is  a  pleasant  place,  and 
pleasant  are  its  inhabitants. 

We  are  too  much  a  nation  of  gentlemen  to  talk  long 
about  ourselves,  and  this  city  of  ours,  with  its  Castle- 
Rock, — its  Arthur's  Scat, — its  Calton  Hill, — and  its  Par- 
thenon of  Seven  Pillars,  standing  unemployed  like  the 
seven  young  men  of  yore,  in  the  now  poor,  dear,  dead 
Scots  Magazine,  but  unlike  them — unfinished  !  There 
will  the  poor  Pillars  be, — in  summer's  heat  and  winter's 
cold — without  a  roof  to  cover  them,  nor,  after  the  scaffold- 
ing shall  have  been  removed,  so  much  as  a  timber  skeleton 
to  stand  between  them  and  the  easterly  harr,  seeming  to 
say  to  every  stranger  as  he  ascends  the  hill, — "  Oh,  mas- 
ter, we  are  Seven  1" 

So  let  us  ofT  to  London  for  an  hour  or  two,  not  by  that 
unhappy  mail-coach,  which  is  not  once  suffered  to  cool  its 
axle-tree  all  the  way  from  this  to  York  Minster — (that  is 
an  edifice  we  must  ere  long  be  describing,) — and  in  which 
we  have  committed  no  crime  of  sufficient  atrocity  to  de- 
serve imprisonment.  Neither  have  we  any  desire  to  die 
of  indigestion,  and  constipation  and  inflammation  of  the 
bowels,  mortification,  and  gangrene.  That  is  the  death  of 
a  bag-man.  No — ours  be  the  stiff,  breeze-loving  smack, 
with  her  bowsprit  right  in  the  wind's  eye,  and  eating  out 
of  it,  as  the  helmsman  luffs  up  to  catch  every  capful,  all 
such  craft  as  custom-house  cutlers,  and  be  hanged  to  them, 
— even  the  king's  ones, — gun-brigs  cruizing  on  the  station, 


A  midsummer-day's  dream.  185 

— Southampton  schooners  of  the  Yacht  Club, — or  crack- 
collier  from  Newcastle,  trying  it  on  in  ballast,  whose  cap- 
tain served  last  with  old  Collingwood,  and,  in  youth,  with 

"  Gallant  Admiral  Howe,  sung  out,  Yo  I  heave  O  !" — 

Or  gallant  steamer,  that,  never  gunwale  in,  but  ever  up- 
right as  the  stately  swan,  cleaves  blast  and  breaker  as 
they  both  come  right  ahead, — the  one  blackening,  and 
the  other  whitening, — while  Bain's  trumpet  is  heard  in  the 
mingled  roar,  and  under  his  intrepid  skill  all  the  iiundrcds 
on  board  feel  as  safe  as  in  their  own  beds,  though  it  is 
near  nightfall,  and  we  are  now  among  the  shores  and  shal- 
lows of  the  Swin,  where  ships  untold  have  gone  to  pieces. 
— See,  there,  a  wreck  ! 

As  for  London,  it  is  long  since  we  have  sported  our 
figure  in  Bond  Street  or  the  Park.  We  have  had  no  box 
at  the  Opera  for  a  good  many  years.  We  have  never 
condescended  to  put  our  nose  into  St.  Stephen's  Chapel 
since  we  accepted  the  Chillerns — the  House  of  Lords  has 
long  been  the  object  of  our  most  distant  respect — and, 
generally  speaking,  at  the  West  End,  wo  verily  believe  wc 
are  about  as  well  known  as  Captain  Parry,  or  any  other 
British  officer,  will  ever  be  at  the  North  Pole. 

Yet  once  we  knew  London  well — both  by  day  when 
it  was  broad  awake,  and  by  night  "  when  all  that  mighty 
heart  was  lying  still."  We  remember,  now,  as  yesterday, 
the  eve  on  which  we  first — all  alone  and  on  foot,  reached 
Hyde-Park  Corner.  All  alone  !  Yes — thousands  and  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  were  on  foot  then,  as  well  as  ourselves, 
and  on  horses  and  in  chariots.  But  still  we  were  alone. 
Not  in  misanthropy — no — no — no — for  then,  as  now,  and 
with  more  intense,  more  burning  passion,  with  stronger- 
winged  and  farther-flighted  imagination  did  we  love  our 
kind,  for  our  thoughts  were  merry  as  nightingales,  untamed 
as  eagles,  and  tender  as  doves.  But  we  were  young — 
and  we  were  in  a  manner  foreigners — and  few  friends  had 
we  but  the  sunbeams  and  the  shadows  of  our  own  restless 
soul.  From  the  solemn  and  sacred  inclosure  of  thy  bell- 
chiming  and  cloistered  haunts — Rhedicyna  I  did  we  come, 
— the  tomes  of  the  old  world's  treasures  closed  for  a  sea- 

16* 


IfeO  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

son — Homer,  and  Pindar,  and  Eschylus,  and  Plato,  and 
the  Stagyrite,  and  Demosthenes,  and  Thucydidcs,  left  for 
awhile  asleep  on  the  shelves  of  the  Gothic-windowed 
library,  where  so  many  musing  days  had  cloudlikc  floated 
by,  nor  failed  to  leave  behind  them  an  immortal  inspiration, 
pure  and  high  as  that  breathed  from  the  beauty  and  the 
grandeur  of  the  regions  of  setting  suns, — and  all  at  once, 
from  the  companionship  of  the  dead  did  we  plunge  into  that 
of  the  living ! 

From  the  companionship  of  the  dead  !  For  having  bade 
farewell  to  our  sweet  native  Scotland,  and  kissed,  ere  wo 
parted,  the  grass  and  the  flowers  with  a  shower  of  filial 
tears — having  bade  farewell  to  all  her  glens,  now  a-glim- 
mer  in  the  blended  light  of  imagination  and  memory — with 
their  cairns  and  kirks,  their  low-chimneyed  huts  and  their 
liigh  turreted  halls — their  free-flowing  rivers,  and  lochs 
dashing  like  seas — we  were  all  at  once  buried,  not  in  the 
Cimmerian  gloom,  but  the  cerulean  glitter,  of  Oxford's 
ancient  academic  groves.  The  genius  of  the  place  fell 
upon  us — yes  I  we  hear  now,  in  the  renewed  delight  of  the 
awe  of  our  youthful  spirit,  the  pealing  organ  in  that  chapel 
called  the  Beautiful — we  see  the  saints  on  the  stained 
windows — at  the  altar  the  picture  of  one  up  Calvary  meekly 
bearing  the  cross!  It  seemed,  then,  that  our  hearts  had 
no  need  even  of  the  kindness  of  kindred — of  the  country 
where  we  were  born,  and  that  had  received  the  continued 
blessings  of  our  enlarging  love  !  Yet  away  went,  even 
then,  sometimes  our  thoughts  to  Scotland,  like  carrier- 
pigeons  wafting  love-messages  beneath  their  unwearied 
wings  !  They  went  and  they  returned,  and  still  their  go- 
ing and  coming  was  blest.  But  ambition  touched  us,  as 
with  the  wand  of  a  magician  from  a  vanished  world  and  a 
vanished  time.  The  Greek  tongue — multitudinous  as  the 
sea — kept  like  the  sea  sounding  in  our  ears,  through  the 
stillness  of  that  world  of  towers  and  temples.  Lo  !  Zeno, 
with  his  arguments  hard  and  high,  beneath  the  Porch  ! 
Plato  divinely  discoursing  in  grove  and  garden !  The 
Stagyrite  searching  for  truth  in  the  profounder  gloom  !  The 
sweet  voice  of  the  smiling  Socrates,  cheering  the  cloister's 
shade  and  the  court's  sunshine  !  And  when  the  thunders 
of  Demosthenes  ceased,  we  heard  the  harping  of  the  old 


A  midsummer-day's  dream.  187 

blind,  glorious  mendicant,  whom,  for  the  loss  of  eyes, 
Apollo  rewarded  with  the  gift  of  immortal  song  !  And 
that  was  our  companionship  of  the  dead ! 

But  the  voice— the  loud  and  near  voice  of  the  living 
world  came  upon  us — and  starting  up,  like  a  man  wakened 
from  the  world  of  sleep  and  dreams,  we  flew  to  meet  it  on 
the  wind — onwards  and  onwards  to  its  source  humming 
louder  and  louder  as  we  approached,  a  magnificent  hum  as 
from  a  city  with  a  thousand  gates  of  everlasting  ingress 
and  egress  to  all  the  nations  of  the  earth  ! 

Not  till  then  had  we  known  any  thing  of  9ur  own  being. 
Before,  all  had  been  dream  and  vision,  through  which  we 
had  sunk,  and  kept  sink  sinking,  like  flowers  surcharged 
with  liquid  radiance,  down  to  the  palaces  of  naiads,  and 
mermaids,  and  fairy  folk,  inhabiting  the  emerald  caves, 
and  walking  through  the  pearl-leaved  forests  and  asphodel 
meadows  of  an  unreal  and  unsubstantial  world  !  For  a 
cloudy  curtain  had  still  seemed  to  hang  between  us  and 
the  old  world — darkening  even  the  fields  of  Marathon  and 
Plataea,  whose  heroes  were  but  as  shadows.  Now  we 
were  in  the  eddies — the  vortices — the  whirlpools  of  the 
great  roaring  sea  of  life !  and  away  we  were  carried,  not 
afraid,  y^t  somewhat  trembling  in  the  awe  of  our  new  de- 
light, into  the  heart  of  the  habitations  of  all  this  world's 
most  imperial,  most  servile — most  tyrannous  and  most 
slavish  passions  !  All  that  was  most  elevating  and  most 
degrading — most  startling  and  most  subduing  too — most 
trying  by  temptation  of  pleasure,  and  by  repulsion  of  pain 
— into  the  heart  of  all  joy  and  all  grief — all  calm  and  all 
storm — all  dangerous  trouble,  and  more  dangerous  rest — 
all  rapture  and  all  agony — crime,  guilt,  misery,  madness 
and  despair.  A  thousand  voices,  each  with  a  different 
tone,  cried  us  on — yet  over  them  all  one  voice,  with  which 
the  rest  were  still  in  unison — the  voice  of  the  hidden 
wickedness  that  is  in  the  soul  of  every  man  who  is  born 
of  a  woman,  and  that  sometimes  as  if  it  were  of  guardian 
angel,  and  sometimes  of  familiar  demon,  now  lured,  per- 
suaded, urged,  drove  us  on — on,  on,  in  amongst  shoals  and 
shallows  of  that  dim  heaving  sea,  where  many  wrecks 
were  visible,  sheer  hulks  heaved  up  on  the  dark  dry — or 
mast-heads  but  a  foot  out  of  the  foam — here  what  seemed 


188  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

a  beacon,  and  there  a  lighthouse,  but  on  we  bore,  all  sail 
set,  to  the  very  sky-scrapers,  with  flags  flying,  and  all  the 
ship  of  life  manned  by  a  crew  of  rebellious  passions — and 
Prudence,  that  old  Palinurus,  at  the  helm  fast  asleep,  and 
then,  as  if  in  his  own  doom  prophetic  of  ours,  overboard 
amongst  breakers  ! 

For  a  moment,  we  thought  of  the  great  cataracts  of 
Scotbmd — Corra-Linn — Foyers — thousands  of  nameless 
torrents  tumbling  over  mountains  to  the  sea — her  mur- 
muring forests  and  caves  a-moaning  for  ever  to  the  winds 
and  waves  round  the  clifl'-bound  coast  of  Cape  Wrath  ! 
But  that  was  the  voice  of  nature — dead  in  her  thunders, 
even  as  in  the  silence  of  thi;  grave.  This  was  the  voice  of 
life — sublimer  far — and  smiling  the  soul  with  a  sublimer 
sympathy.  Now,  our  whole  being  was  indeed  broad 
awake — hitherto,  in  its  deepest  stirrings,  it  had  been  as 
asleep.  All  those  beautiful  and  delightful  reveries  vanished 
away,  as  something  too  airy  and  indolent  for  the  spirit — ' 
passive  no  more — but  rejoicing  in  its  strength,  like  a  full- 
fledged  young  eagle,  leaping  from  the  edge  of  its  eyry, 
fearlessly  and  at  once,  over  the  cliff,  and  away  olfinto  the 
bosom  of  the  storm  ! 

Whither  shall  we  look?  Whither  shall  we  fly?  Deni- 
zens of  a  new  world — a  new  universe — chartered  libertines, 
as  yet  unblamed  by  conscience,  who  took  part  with  the 
passions,  knowing  not  that  even  her  own  sacred  light  might 
be  obscured  by  the  flapping  of  their  demon-wings!  And 
why  should  conscience,  even  in  that  danger,  have  been 
afraid  ?  It  is  not  one  of  her  duties  to  start  at  shadows. 
God-given  to  the  human  breast,  she  suflers  nut  her  state  to 
be  troubled  by  crowds  of  vain  apprehensions,  or  she  would 
fall  in  her  fear.  Even  then,  virtue  had  her  sacred  allies 
in  our  heart.  The  love  of  that  Nature  on  whose  bosom  we 
had  been  bred — a  sleeping  spark  of  something  like  poetry 
in  our  souls  unextinguishable,  and  preservative  of  the  in- 
nocence it  enlightened — reverence  of  the  primitive  simpli- 
city of  beloved  Scotland's  faith — the  memory  of  the  old, 
holy,  and  heroic  songs — the  unforgolten  blessing  of  a 
mother's  living  lips,  of  a  father's  dying  eyes — the  ambi- 
tion, neither  low  nor  ignoble,  of  youth's  aspiring  hopes, 
for,  not  altogether  uncrowned  had  been  our  temples,  even 


A    MIDSUMMEU-DAV'S    DKEAM.  189 

with  ihe  Muses'  wreath — a  whisper  of  Hope,  faint,  far-off, 
and  uncertain,  and  haply  even  now  unrealized  its  promise 
— and  far  down  buried,  but  instinct  with  spirit,  beneath 
them  all,  a  life-deep  love  for  her,  that  orphan-maid — so 
human,  yet  so  visionary — afar-off  in  the  beauty  of  her 
heaven-protected  innocence,  beneath  the  shadow  of  that 
old  castle,  where  by  day  the  starlings  looked  down  on  her 
loveliness,  sole-sitting  among  the  ruins,  and  for  her  the 
wood-lark,  Scotia's  nightingale,  did  sing  all  night  long — 
a  life-deep  love,  call  it  passion,  pity,  friendship,  brotherly 
affection,  all  united  together  by  smiles,  sighs,  and  tears — 
songs  sung  as  by  an  angel  in  the  moonlight  glen — prayers 
in  that  oratory  among  the  cliffs — the  bliss  of  meetings  and 
of  partings  among  the  glimmering  woods,  sanctified  by  her 
presence — of  that  long,  last,  eternal  farewell  ! 

Therefore,  our  spirit  bore  a  charmed  life  into  that  world 
of  danger  and  death.  That  face  to  us  was  holy,  though 
then  all  alive  in  its  loveliness — and,  oh!  that  it  should 
ever  have  been  dead — holy  as  the  face  of  some  figure — 
some  marble  figure  of  a  saint  lying  on  a  tomb.  Its  smile 
was  with  us  even  when  our  eyes  knew  it  not — its  voice 
as  the  dying  close  of  music,  when  our  ear  was  given  to 
other  sounds  less  pensive  and  divine. 

With  all  its  senses  in  a  transport  our  soul  was  now  in 
the  mighty  London  !  Every  single  street-musician  seemed 
to  us  as  an  Orpheus.  Each  band  of  female  singers,  some 
harping  as  they  sung,  and  others,  with  light  guitar  riband- 
bound  to  their  graceful  shoulders,  to  us  were  as  the  Muses 
— each  airy  group  very  goddesses, 

"  Knit  with  the  Graces  and  the  Loves  in  dance," 

and  leading  on  the  hours  along  the  illnminated  atmosphere, 
where  each  lamp  was  a  star!  The  whole  world  seemed 
houses,  palaces,  domes,  theatres,  and  temples — and  London 
the  universal  name  !  Yet  there  was  often  a  shudder  as 
the  stream  of  terrible  enjoyment  went  roaring  by — and 
the  faces  of  all  those  lost  creatures — those  daughters  of 
sin  and  sorrow — with  fair  but  wan  faces,  hollow  bright 
eyes — and  shrieks  of  laughter,  appalled  the  heart  that 
wondered  at  their  beauty,  and  then  started  to  hear  afar 


190  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

ofT,  and  as  in  a  whisper,  the  word  "  innocence,"  as  if  it 
were  the  name  of  somclhinf!;  sacred  in  another  life  and 
another  world  ;  for  here  guiU  was  in  its  glory  and  its  urief, 
women  angels  of  light  no  more,  but  iiends  of  darkness, 
hunting  and  hnnted  to  despair  and  death  ! 

Fear  cannot  live  in  youth's  bosom;  and  gay  and  glad 
we  penetrated,  like  a  young  bird  that  loves  the  sunshine  of 
the  open  sky,  yet  dreads  not  to  drop  down,  or  dart  into 
the  black  forest  gloom — into  the  haunts  where  the  old  gray 
grim  Iniquity  had,  from  time  immemorial,  established  his 
strongholds.  The  ruffian's  scowl  fell  ofl'  our  face,  like 
darkness  from  a  new-trimmed  lamp,  of  which  the  oil  failed 
not — our  eye,  which  neither  grief  nor  guilt  had  clouded, 
made  that  of  the  robber,  the  burgl;ir,  and  the  murderer  to 
quail — convicts  even  then  to  conscience,  and  doomed  to 
die  on  the  scaffold — curses  and  execrations  passed  by  our 
heads  like  blasts  by  the  top  of  the  strong  young  trees. 
And  will  law,  bloody  penal  law,  quell  crimes  in  such 
hearts  as  these,  or  strike  their  hands  with  palsy?  Shall 
the  hangman  terrify,  when  conscience  is  a  bugbear  ?  Other 
ministers  must  disarm  the  murderers.  Another  light  than 
the  torch  in  the  iron  grasp  of  criminal  justice  discovering 
and  dragging  the  felon  from  his  haunt,  must  penetrate  and 
dispel  the  darkness,  till  it  is  as  broad  as  day,  and  therein 
wickedness  can  hatch  and  hide  no  more — the  light  of  mercy, 
and  the  jurisprudence  of  the  New  Testament.  But  on 
reascending  from  the  dolorous  region  into  the  blessed  day, 
there  was  the  dome  of  St  Paul's  in  heaven,  or  there  the 
holy  Abbey,  where  sleep  England's  holiest  dead,  and  the 
Thames,  with  all  his  floating  glories,  moored  or  adrifling 
with  the  tide  down  to  the  sea,  like  giants  rejoicing  to  run 
a  race  to  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  earth  I 

How  dreamlike  the  flowings  of  the  Isis  by  Godstow's  ivied 
ruin,  where  blossomed,  bloomed,  and  perished  in  an  hour, 
Rosamunda — flower  of  the  world  !  How  cheerful,  as  if 
waked  from  a  dream,  glides  on  the  famous  stream  by 
Christ  Church  Cathedral  grove  !  How  sweet  by  Iflley's 
Saxon  tower  !  By  Nuncham's  lime-tree  shade  how  serene 
as  peace!  But  here  thou  hast  changed  thy  name  and  thy 
nature  into  the  sea-seeking  Thames,  alive  and  loud  with 
the  tide  that  murmurs  of  the  ocean-foam,  and  bridged  mag- 


A  midsummek-day's  dream.  191 

nificently  as  becomes  the  river  that  makes  glad  the  City 
of  the  Kings  who  are  the  umpires  of  the  whole  world's 
wars  !  Down  sailed  our  spirit^  along  with  the  floating 
standard  of  England,  to  the  Norc.  There  her  Fleet  lay 
moored,  like  a  thunder-cloud  whose  lightning  rules  the 
sea — 

"  Her  march  is  o'er  the  mountain-wave, 
Her  home  is  on  the  deep  !" 

Wo  to  all  the  isle,  when  the  sons  of  ocean  walk  their 
decks  in  mutiny  !  VVo  to  France  and  Spain  and  all  the 
banded  naval  powers  of  the  world,  when,  calm  as  clouds, 
the  fleet  bears  down  in  white-winged  line  of  battle,  and 
the  foeman's  crescent  breaks  into  fragments,  and  melts 
away,  with  all  its  struck  flags,  into  fatal  overthrow  !  And 
what,  O  London  !  were  the  Tyre  and  Sidon,  whose  mer- 
chants were  princes — what  were  Tyre  and  Sidon  to  thee ! 
Even  now  the  sun  is  rising,  and  the  sun  is  setting,  on  thy 
countless  sails.     We  almost  cease  now  to  feel 

"Of  the  old  sea  some  reverential  fear  !" 

The  ocean  obeys  "  the  meteor-flag  of  England,"  even  as  its 
ebbing  and  flowing  obeys  the  planet. 

But  it  is  night,  and  lo  !  the  crowded  theatre  is  ablaze 
with  beauty;  and  as  Tragedy,  "  with  solemn  stole,  comes 
sweeping  by,"  the  piled-up  multitude  is  all  as  hush  as 
death.  Then  first  the  "  buried  majesty  of  Denmark" — 
though  mimic  all  the  scene — was  awful  and  full  of  dread 
to  our  young  imagination,  as  if  indeed  "  I'evisiting  the 
glimpses  of  the  moon,"  on  the  old  battlements  of  Elsineur 
— the  fine,  pensive,  high  philosophy  of  the  melancholy, 
world-distracted  Ilamlet,  flowed  as  if  from  his  own  very 
princely  lips — the  fair  Ophelia,  as  she  went  singing  and 
scattering  her  flowers,  was  to  us  a  new  image  of  a  purer 
innocence,  a  more  woful  sorrow,  than  we  knew  before  to 
have  ever  had  its  birth  or  burial-i)lace  on  this  earth.  There 
we  saw  the  shadow  of  the  mightiest  Julius  standing — 
imperial  still — before  liis  beloved  Brutus  in  the  tent;  and 
as  he  waved  a  majestic  upbraiding,  threatening,  and  warn- 
ing, from  the  hand  that  had  subdued  the  world,  we  heard 
the  Csesar  say,  "  We  will  meet  again  at  Philippi."    There 


192  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

we,  too,  as  well  as  the  Thane,  heard  a  voice  cry  to  all  the 
house,  "sleep  no  more — Glammis  hath  murdered  sleep — 
and  therefore  Cawdor  shall  sleep  no  more  !"  and  in  glided, 
with  stone  eyes  and  bloodless  lace,  sleep-walking  remorse, 
in  the  form  of  a  stately  lady  wringing  her  hands,  and 
groaning,  "  Out,  damned  spot,"  while  the  haunted  felt  in 
her  dream,  that  "  not  all  the  perfumes  of  Arabia  could 
sweeten  that  little  hand  !" 

Then  there  was  eloquence  in  the  world,  that  is  in 
London,  in  those  days  ;  or  did  the  soul  then  half-create 
the  thunders  she  heard  pealing  from  the  lips  of  Burke, 
and  Pitt,  and  Fox,  the  great  orators  of  England,  and  startle 
at  the  flash  of  her  own  lightning?  But  the  old  pillars  of 
the  social  edifice  then  seemed  to  rock  as  to  an  earthquake, 
and  the  lips  of  common  men,  in  the  general  inspiration, 
were  often  touched  with  fire.  Even  now  we  see  their 
flashing  eyes,  their  knit  brows,  their  clenched  hand,  their 
outstretched  arms — their  "  face  inflamed" — even  now  we 
hear  their  voices,  flowing  like  majestic  streams,  or  loud 
as  the  headlong  cataract — of  those  whom  the  world  con- 
sents to  call  great.  We  thought  as  we  looked  and  listened, 
of  him  who 

"Wielded  nt  will  llint  fierce  democracy, 
Shook  the  arsenal,  and  fulmincd  over  Greece — 
From  Maccdon  to  Artaxerxes'  throne  ;" 

nor  felt  that  the  son  of  Chatam  was  less  than  "  the  thun- 
derer,"  as  he  stood  proudly  denouncing  vengeance  against 
the  legions  of  the  tricolor,  and  prophesying  the  triumph  of 
the  glorious  Isle,  "  whose  shores  beat  back  the  ocean's 
foamy  feet,"  and  whose  sons  have  ever  been  the  true  chil- 
dren of  Liberty. 

The  spirit  of  the  world  was  then  awakened  by  dreadful 
outcries  from  too  long"  a  sleep — and  the  alarum-bcU  that 
then  kept  tolling  far  and  wide  over  the  sky,  though  now 
its  iron  tongue  is  at  rest,  or  but  trembling  in  that  "  hollow," 
so  soon  and  so  easy  made  to  give  forth  its  sullen  music, 
hangs  still  over  the  nations,  who,  under  even  the  silence 
of  its  shadow,  shall  sink  no  more  into  disgraceful  slum- 
bers. The  ears  of  kings,  and  princes,  and  nobles,  were 
astounded  ;  and   nil  Europe  groaned  or  gloried  with    the 


A    MIDSUMMER-DAYS    DREAM.  193 

Bourbon's  in-vain-anointed  head,  was  with  the  few  fatal 
words  held  up  dissevered,  "Behold  the  head  of  a  tyrant!" 
and  the  axe,  that  made  no  respect  of  persons,  bit  the  fair 
neck  of  Marie  Antoinette,  nathless  all  those  glorious  tresses 
whose  beauty  had  dazzled  the  world.  Life  was  then 
struck,  over  all  its  surface  and  all  its  depths,  with  a  stormy 
sunshine — dread  alternations  of  brightness  and  blackness, 
that  made  the  soul  to  quake  alike  in  its  hopes  and  in  its 
fears.  Who  wished,  then,  to  escape  the  contagion  ? — 
Not  even  the  gentlest,  the  most  fervent,  the  most  devoted 
lovers  of  domestic  peace.  They,  too,  joined  the  hymn  of 
thanksgiving — and  one  Pccan  seemed  to  stun  the  sky.  But 
the  very  clouds  ere  long  began  to  drop  blood,  and  then 
good  men  paused  even  to  obey  the  stern  voice  of  Justice, 
in  fear  that  the  dewy  voice  of  Mercy  should  never  more 
be  heard  on  earth.  Call  it  not  a  reaction — for  that  is  a 
paltry  word — but  thankful  to  the  great  God  did  men  be- 
come, when  at  last,  standing  silent  on  the  desolate  shore, 
they  saw  the  first  ebb  of  that  fiercely-flowing  tide,  and 
knew  that  the  sea  was  to  return  to  its  former  limits,  and 
sweep  away  no  more  the  peasant's  hut  and  the  prince's 
palace. 

That  was  a  tim.e  indeed,  for  men  to  speak,  to  whom 
heaven  had  granted  the  gift  of  eloquence.  And  London 
then  held  many  eloquent,  who,  when  the  storm  was  hushed, 
relapsed  into  men  of  common  speech. 

But  poor,  vain,  and  empty  all,  is  the  glory  of  great 
orators,  compared  with  that  of  poets  and  sages,  or  con- 
querors. The  poet  and  sage  walk  hand  in  hand  together 
through  the  moral  and  intellectual  empire  of  mind — nor, 
in  the  world's  admiration,  is  the  triumphal  car  of  victory 
unworthy  of  being  placed  near  the  Muses'  bower.  What 
mighty  ones  have  breathed  the  air  of  that  great  city — 
have  walked  in  inspiration  along  the  banks  of  England's 
metropolitan-river — have  been  inhumed  in  her  burial- 
places,  humble  or  high,  frequented  by  common  and  care- 
less feet,  or  by  footsteps  treading  reverentially,  while  the 
visiter's  eyes  are  fixed  on  marble  image  or  monument, 
sacred  to  virtue,  to  valour,  or  to  genius,  the  memory  of 
the  prime  men  of  the  earth  !  These,  London,  are  thy 
guardian  spirits — these  thy  tutelary  gods.      When  the  hor- 

VOL.  I.  17 


194  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

rid  howl  of  night — the  howl  of  all  those  distracted  pas- 
sions is  hushed — and  the  soul,  relieved  from  the  sorrow  in 
which  it  thinks  of  sin,  when  an  eye  or  ear-witness  to  its 
unhallowed  orgies,  lifts  up  its  eyes  to  the  stars  so  bright 
and  beautiful,  so  silent  and  so  serene — then  remembereth 
she  the  names,  the  endowments,  the  achievements,  of  the 
immortal  dead.  There — largest  and  most  lustrous — that 
star  that  "  dwells  apart" — is  the  image  of  Milton  !  That 
other,  soft-burning,  dewy,  and  almost  twinkling  star — now 
seeming  to  shine  out  into  intenser  beauty,  and  now  almost 
dim,  from  no  obscuring  cloud  or  mist,  but  as  if  some  inter- 
nal spirit  shaded  the  light  for  a  moment,  even  as  an  angel 
may  veil  his  countenance  with  his  wings — that  is  the  star 
of  Spenser!  And  of  all  the  bright  people  of  the  skies,  to 
fancy's  gaze,  thou,  most  lovely  planet,  art  the  very  Fairy- 
Queen  ! 

Therefore,  to  us,  enthusiasts  then  in  poetry — and  may 
that  enthusiasm  survive  even  the  season  "  of  brightness  in 
the  grass  and  glory  in  the  flower,"  which  has  almost  now 
passed  away — to  us,  who  thought  of  poets  as  beings  set 
apart  from  the  world  which  their  lays  illumined — how 
solemn — how  sacred — how  sublime  a  delight — deaf  and 
blind  to  all  the  sights  and  sounds  of  the  common  day — to 
look  on  the  very  house  in  which  some  great  poet  had 
been  born — lived — or  died  !  Were  the  house  itself  gone, 
and  some  ordinary  pile  erected  in  its  stead,  still  we  saw 
down  into  the  old  consecrated  foundation  !  Had  the  very 
street  been  swept  away — iis  name  and  its  dust — still  the 
air  was  holy — and  more  beautiful  overhead  the  blue  gleam 
of  the  sky  ! 

And  in  the  midst  of  all  that  noisy  world  of  the  present, 
that  noisy  and  miserable  world — in  the  midst  of  it  and 
pervading  it — might  not  even  our  youthful  eye  see  the 
spirit  of  religion  1  And  leel,  even  when  most  astounded 
with  sights  and  sounds  of  wickedness,  that  in  life  there 
was  still  a  mens  divinior — 

"  Mens  .-ij^itat  niolcm  ct  niagno  se  corporc  miscct." 

Christianity  spoke  in  Sabbath-bells,  not  "swinging  slow 
with  sullen  roar,"  like  the  curfew  of  old  extinguishing  the 


A  midsummer-day's  dream.  195 

household  fires  on  all  hearths;  but,  high  up  in  the  clearer 
air,  the  belfry  of  tower  and  spire  sent  a  sweet  summons, 
each  over  its  own  region,  to  families  to  repair  again  to  the 
house  of  God,  where  the  fires  of  faith,  hope,  and  charity, 
might  be  rekindled  on  the  altar  of  the  religion  of  peace. 
The  sweet  solemn  faces  of  old  men — of  husbands  and 
fathers,  and  sons  and  brothers — the  fair  faces  of  matrons 
and  virgins — the  gladsome  faces  of  children — 

"  For  piety  is  sweet  to  infant  minds" — 

were  seen  passing  along  the  sobered  streets,  whose  stones, 
but  a  few  hours  ago,  clanked  to  the  mad  rushing  to  and 
fro  of  unhallowed  feet,  while  the  air,  now  so  still,  or  mur- 
muring but  with  happy  voices,  attuned  to  the  spirit  of  the 
day,  was  lately  all  astir  with  rage,  riot,  and  blasphemy  ! 

"  Such  ebb  and  flow  must  ever  be, 
Tlien  wherefore  should  we  mourn  1" 

Sweet  is  the  triumph  of  religion  on  the  Sabbath-day,  in 
some  solitary  glen,  to  which  come  trooping  from  a  hun- 
dred braes,  all  the  rural  dwellers,  disappearing,  one  small 
family  party  after  another,  into  the  hushed  kirk — now,  as 
the  congregation  has  collected,  exhaling  to  heaven,  as  a 
flower-bank  exhales  its  fragrance,  the  voice  of  psalms! 
But  there  piety  has  only  deepened  peace!  Here — though 
yet  the  voice  of  the  great  city  will  not  be  hushed — and 
there  is  heard  ever  a  suppressed  murmur — a  sound — a 
noise — a  growl — dissatisfied  with  the  Sabbath — here,  the 
power  that  descends  from  the  sky  upon  men's  hearts  stilling 
them  against  their  wills  into  a  sanctity  so  alien  to  their 
usual  life,  is  felt  to  have  even  a  more  sublime  consecra- 
tion !  "  The  still  small  voice"  speaks,  in  the  midst  of  all 
that  unrepressed  stir,  the  more  distinctly,  because  so  un- 
like the  other  sounds,  with  which  it  mingles  not;  that 
there  is  another  life,  "not  of  this  noisy  world,  but  silent 
and  divine,"  is  felt  from  the  very  disturbances  that  will  not 
lie  at  rest;  and  though  hundreds  of  thousands  heed  it  not, 
the  tolling  of  that  great  bell  from  (he  cathedral  strikes  of 
death  and  judgment.     Yes,  England!  with  all  thy  sins, 


196  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

thou  boldest,  with  fast  devotion,  to  the  faith,  for  which  so 
many  of  thy  sainted  sons  did  perish  in  the  fires  of  perse- 
cution. The  smoke  of  those  fierce  faggots  is  dead — but, 
as  that  inspired  man  prophesied,  while  he  held  up  his 
withered  hand  in  the  scorching  flame — such  a  fire  has 
been  kindled  as  lights  all  the  land — centuries  after  his 
martyred  ashes  were  given  to  the  heedless  winds, — and 
the  names  of  Cranmer  and  Ridley  are  reverenced  for 
evermore  ! 

High  ministrations — solemn  services  of  religion  ! — in 
which  the  Church  of  England,  in  its  reverential  awe,  de- 
lights— from  the  first  hour  in  which  we  participated  in  the 
holy  rites,  they  breathed  into  our  being  the  fiill,  deep,  divine 
spirit  of  devotion,  sanctifying,  at  burst  or  close  of  the 
organ-peal,  the  chapel's  ])illared  shade! — How  sweetly 
rose  our  souls  to  heaven  on  the  hymn  of  the  young  white- 
robed  choristers  ! — How  sunk  they  and  swelled,  rejoiced 
and  saddened,  and  when  the  thought  of  some  of  our  own 
peculiar  sorrows  also  touched  us,  how  they  even  wept, 
over  the  worship  of  that  beautiful  liturgy,  composed  so 
scripturally  by  pious  men,  to  whom  the  language  of  the 
Bible  had  been  familiar  almost  as  their  mother  tongue  ! 
Of  the  great  old  English  divines,  so  laden  with  heavenly 
erudition,  and  who  had  brought  all  human  wisdom  and 
human  science  to  establish  and  to  illustrate  the  religion  of 
the  lowly  Jesus,  remembrance  often  crossed  us  like  a  sha- 
dow, at  each  wide-murmured  response.  Apostles  of  a 
later  time,  inspired  by  their  own  faith!  Yet  true  still 
were  our  hearts  to  the  memory  of  that  simpler  service,  nor 
less  divine — for  blessed  ever  are  all  modes  of  worship  in 
which  the  human  being  seeks  in  sincerity  to  draw  near  to 
God — that  simpler  service,  so  well  suited  to  a  simpler  land, 
in  which  we  had  from  infancy  been  instructed,  and  which, 
to  preserve  in  its  purity,  had  our  own  forefathers  blcd.»la 
the  high  cathedral, 

"Where  tliroiifrli  tlio  loiiff-drawn  isle  and  frcttod  vault, 
The  pealing  aiitliem  s\^clls  tlie  note  of  praise," 

we  call  to  mind  tlie  low  kirk  and  its  psalms.  The  kirk 
near  the  modest  manse,  in  which  our  boyhood  flew  away 


A  midsummer-day's  drkam.  197 

— with  its  decent  pews,  little  loft,  and  unambitious  pulpit — 
the  friendly  faces  of  the  rural  congregation — the  grave 
elders  sitting  in  their  place  of  honour — the  pious  preacher, 
who  to  us  had  been  a  father! — Oh!  many-toned  are  the 
voices  on  the  Sabbath,  all  praising  and  worshipping  God  ! 
List — list,  in  the  hush  of  thy  spirit,  and  all  Christian  lands 
are  sounding  with  one  various  hymn  ! 

And  then  London,  ere  long,  became  to  us — in  all  its 
vaslness — even  as  our  very  home  !  For  all  undisturbed 
amidst  the  din,  and  murmuring  internally,  each  with  its 
own  peculiar  character  of  domestic  joys,  with  laughter  and 
with  song — how  many  dwellings  for  us  did  open  their 
hospitable  doors,  and  welcome  us  in,  with  blessings,  be- 
neath their  social  roofs  !  Our  presence  brought  a  brighter 
expression  into  their  partial  eyes;  our  mirth  never  seemed 
otherwise  than  well-timed  to  them,  nor  yet  did  our  melan- 
choly— nor  failed  either  to  awaken  congenial  feelings  in 
the  breasts  of  those  to  whom  we  were  too  undeservedly 
dear — smiles  went  round  the  hearth  or  table  circle  to  our 
quaint  ditty  and  talc  of  glee — and  the  tears  have  fallen, 
when  in  the  "parlour  twilight"  we  sang 

"  One  of  those  Scottish  tunes  so  sad  and  slow," 

or  told  some  one  of  those  old,  pathetic,  traditionary  stories, 
that  still,  cloud-like,  keep  floating  over  all  the  hills  of 
Scotland  !  Oh  !  the  great  pleasure  of  friendships  formed 
in  youth !  where  chance  awakens  sympathy,  accident 
kindles  affection — and  fortune,  blind  and  restless  on  her 
revolving  wheel,  favours,  as  if  she  were  some  serene-eyed 
and  steadfast  divinity,  the  purest  passions  of  the  soul !  As 
one  friendship  was  added  to  another — and  base  creed  it  is 
— most  shallow  and  fantastic — that  would  confine  amity, 
even  in  its  dearest  meaning — for  how  different  is  friend- 
ship from  love — to  communicate  but  with  some  single 
chosen  one,  excluding  all  our  other  brethren  from  approach 
to  the  heart — although  true  it  is,  that  some  one,  in  our 
greatest  bale  and  our  greatest  bliss,  will  be  more  tenderly, 
more  profoundly,  more  gratefully  embraced  than  all  the 
rest — as  friendship  was  added  to  friendship,  as  family  after 
family,  household  after  household,    became  each  a  new 

17* 


198  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

part  of  our  enlarged  being,  how  delightful,  almost  every 
successive  day,  to  feel  ou  knowledge  growing  wider  and 
warmer  of  the  virtues  of  the  character  of  England  !  Per- 
haps some  unconscious  nationality  had  been  brought  with 
us  from  our  native  braes — narrowing  our  range  of  feeling, 
and  inclining  sometimes  to  unjust  judgments  and  unkindly 
thoughts.  But  all  that  was  poor  or  bad  in  that  prejudice, 
soon  melted  away  before  the  light  of  bold  English  eyes, 
before  the  music  of  bold  English  speech.  Sons  and 
daughters  of  the  free  !  As  brothers  and  as  sisters  we 
loved  you  soon — without  suspicion,  without  reserve,  with- 
out jealousy,  without  envy  of  your  many  superior  and  sur- 
passing endowments  of  nature,  and  accomplishments  of  art! 
For,  with  all  deduction  on  the  score  of  inevitable  human 
fault  and  frailty,  how  high  the  morals  of  England,  her 
manners  how  becoming  the  children  of  such  a  birth  ! 

The  friends,  too,  whom  in  those  sacred  hours,  we  had 
taken  to  our  hearts,  linked,  along  with  other  more  human 
ties,  by  the  love  of  literature  and  poetry — and  with  whom 
we  had  striven  to  enter 

"  Tlic  cave  obscure  of  old  Pliilosopliy," 

and  when  starry  midnight  shone  serenely  over  Oxford's 
towers  and  temples,  sighed — vainly  sighed — with  unsatisfied 
longings  and  as|iiralions,  that  would  not  let  us  rest,  to  "  un- 
sphere  the  spirit  of  Plato" — they,  too,  were  often  with  us 
in  the  wide  metropolis,  where,  wide  as  it  is,  dear  friends 
cannot  almost  be  for  a  single  day,  but  by  some  happy  fortune 
they  meet !  How  grasped — clasped  were  then  our  hands 
and  our  hearts!  flow  all  college  recollections — cheerful 
and  full  of  glee — or  high  and  of  a  solemn  shade — came 
over  us  from  llic  silence  of  those  still  retreats,  in  the  noise 
of  the  restless  London  !  Magdalen,  Mcrtoun,  Oriel,  Christ- 
Church,  Trinity — how  pleasant  were  your  names! 

Hundreds  of  morning,  meridian,  evening,  midnight  meet- 
ings !  Each  with  its  own — nor  let  us  fear  to  declare  it 
beneath  those  sunny  skies — with  its  blameless,  at  least  not 
sinful,  charm.  Now  carried  on  a  stream  of  endless,  va- 
rious, fluctuating  converse,  with  a  friend,  more  earnest, 
more  enthusiastic,  more  impassioned  than  ourselves — and 


A  M1DSU3IMER-DAy's  dreaji.  199 

nature  filled  not  our  veins  with  frozen  blood — along  streets 
and  squares,  all  dimly  seen  or  unseen,  and  the  faces  and 
figures  of  the  crowds  that  went  thronging   by,  like  the 
faces  and  figures  in  some  regardless  dream  !     Now  walk- 
ing in,  on  a  sudden,  and  as  if  by   some  divine  impulse, 
into  that  cathedral — or  that  abbey — ask  not  their  names — 
and  there,  apart  and  silent,  standing  with  fixed  eyes  before 
statue  or  tomb  !     Now   glide  gliding  in   light  canoe  with 
wind  and  tide  adown  the  great  river,  in  indolent  yet  ima- 
ginative   reverie,   while   masts  and  sails,   and    trees    and 
towers,  as  they  all  went  floating  through  the  air,  seemed 
scarcely  to  belong  to  any  world — or  proud  of  the  skuller's 
skill,  and  emulous  of  the  strength  of  the  broad-breasted 
watermen  whom  Father  Thames  sustains,  striving,  stripped, 
against  the  waves  a-ripple  and  a-foam  with  the  rapid  ebb, 
impatient  to  return  to  the  sea  !     Now  a-foot  along  pleasant 
pathways,  for  a  time  leading  through  retired  and  sylvan 
places,   and  then  suddenly  past  a  cluster  of  cottages,  or 
into  a  pretty  village,  almost  a  town,  and  purposely  with- 
holding our  eyes  from  the  prospect,  till  we  had  reached 
one   well  remembered   eminence — and    then   the  glorious 
vision  seen  from  Richmond  Hill !     Where,  where,  on  the 
face  of  all  the  earth,  can  the  roaming  eye  i*est  in  more 
delighted  repose  than  on  the  "  pleasant  villages  and  farms" 
that  far  and  wide  compose  that   surburban  world,  so  rich 
in  trees  alone,  that  were  there  no  other  beauty,  the  poet 
could  even  find  a  paradise  both  for  week-day  and  Sabbath 
hours,  in  the  bright  neighbourhood  of  London  !     Endless 
profusion  and  prodigality  of  art,  coping  almost  successfully 
with  nature  !     Wealth  is  a  glorious  thing  in  such  creations. 
Riches  are  the  wands  of  magicians.     Poverty  bleakens  the 
earth — in  her  region  grandeur*  is  bare — and  we  sigh  for 
something  that  is  not  among  the  naked  rocks.     But  here 
from  the  buried  gold,  groves  rise  with  such  loads  of  ver- 
dure, that  but  for  their  giant  boughs  and  branches,  their 
heads  would  be  bowed  down  to  the  lawns   and  gardens, 
gorgeous  all  with  their  flushing  flowers,  naturalized  in  the 
all-bearing  soil  of  England,  from  all  climes,  from  the  Occi- 
dent to  the  orient ! 

But  where  cease  the  suburban  charms  of  the  Queen  of 
Cities  1     Mansion  after  mansion — each  more  beautifully 


200  VlLSOrs^'s    MISCELLANEOUS    WRITINGS. 

embowered  than  another — or  more  beautifijlly  seated  on 
some  gently  undulating  height,  above  the  far-sweeping 
windings  of  the  silver  Thames,  is  still  seen  by  the  roamer's 
eye,  not  without  some  touch  of  vain  envy  at  his  heart  of 
those  fortunate  ones,  for  whom  life  thus  lavishes  ail  its 
elegance  and  all  its  ease — Oh,  vain  envy  indeed  I  for  who 
knows  not  that  all  happiness  is  seated  alone  in  the  heart! 
— till,  ere  he  remembers  that  fur-otT  London  has  vanished 
quite  away,  he  looks  up,  and  lo  !  the  towers  of  Windsor — 
the  palace  of  old  England's  kings. 

Nor  are  those  "  sylvan  scenes"  unworthily  inhabited. 
Travel  city-crowded  continents,  sail  in  some  circumnavi- 
gating ship  to  far  and  fair  isles,  that  seem  dropt  from 
heaven  into  the  sea,  yet  shall  your  eyes  behold  no  lovelier 
living  visions  than  the  daughters  of  England.  Lovelier 
never  visited  poet's  slumbers  nightly — not  even  when 
before  him  in  youth 

"  Hope,  enchanted,  smiled,  and  waved  her  g-olden  hair  !" 

And  of  England's  '■'■  inter rita  pubes, ''^  \ci  speak  the  shore 
of  every  sea — 

"  A  race  in  faith  unstain'd,  invincible  in  arms." 

Wafted  away,  we  knew  not,  cared  not  whither,  on  the 
wings  of  wonder  and  admiration, — when,  during  the  long 
summer  silence,  the  towers  of  Oxford  kept  chiming  to 
deserted  courts  and  cloisters, — all  England,  its  downs,  its 
wolds,  its  meadows,  its  plains,  its  vales,  its  hills,  its  moun- 
tains, minsters,  abbeys,  cathedrals,  castles,  palaces,  vil- 
lages, towns,  and  cities,  all  became  tributary  to  our 
imagination,  gazing  upon  her  glories  with  a  thousand 
eyes.  Now  we  breathed  the  fragrance  of  Devonia's 
myrtle  bowers — now  from  St.  Michael's  Mount  "  looked 
to  Bayona  and  the  Giant's  Hold,"  now  wept  and  wor- 
shipped at  the  grave  of  Shakspeare,  or  down  the  yellow 
Avon  thought  we  saw  sailing  her  own  sweet  stately  swan  ! 
Now  gazed  in  dread  astonishment  on  Portsmouth's  naval 
arsenal,  and  all  that  machinery — sublime,  because  of  the 
power  that  sets  it  a-going,  and  far  more,  because  of  the 


A  midsummer-day's  dream.  201 

power  that  it  sends  abroad,  winged  and  surcharged  with 
thunder,  all  over  the  main — ships  without  masts,  sheer- 
hulks,  majestic  and  magnificent  even  in  that  bare  blaclv 
magnitude,  looming  through  the  morning  or  evening 
gloaming — and  lo  !  a  first-rater,  deck  above  deck,  tier 
above  tier  of  guns,  sending  up,  as  she  sails  in  sunshine, 
her  clouds  into  the  sky  ;  and  as  the  Ocean  Queen  bears 
up  in  the  blast,  how  grand  her  stern — and  what  a  height 
above  the  waves  tumbling  a-foam  in  her  wake!  Now 
seated  on  the  highest  knoll  of  all  the  bright  Malvern  Hills 
in  breathless  delight,  slowly  turning  round  our  head  in 
obedience  to  the  beauty  and  grandeur  of  that  panorama — 
matchless  on  earth — we  surveyed  at  one  moment  county 
upon  county,  of  rich,  merry,  sylvan  England,  mansioned, 
abbeyed,  towered,  spired,  castled ;  and  at  another,  differ- 
ent, and  yet  not  discordant,  say,  rather,  most  harmonious 
with  that  other  level  scene,  the  innumerous  mountains  of 
Wales,  cloud-crested,  or  clearly  cutting  with  outlines  free, 
flowing  or  fantastic,  here  the  deep  blue,  there  the  dark 
purple,  and  yonder  the  bright  crimson  sky!  Wales,  glo- 
rious, even  were  she  without  other  glory,  with  Plinlimmon, 
Cader-ldris,  Snowdon, 

"  Vocal  no  more  since  Cambria's  fatal  day, 
To  high-born  Hoel's  harp,  or  soft  Llewellyn's  lay." 

Now  borne  as  on  angel's  wing,  and  in  the  "  very  waist 
and  middle  of  the  night,"  we  sat  down  a  solitary  on  Der- 
went  W^ater's  shore, 

"  While  the  cataract  of  Lodore 
Peal'd  to  our  orisons  I" 

Now  while  Luna  and  her  nymphs  delighted  to  behold  their 
own  beauty  on  its  breathless  bosom,  we  hung  in  a  little 
skiff,  like  a  water-lily  moored  in  moonshine,  in  the  fairest 
of  all  fair  scenes  in  nature,  and  the  brightest  of  all  the 
bright — how  sweet  the  music  of  her  name,  as  it  falls  from 
our  lips  with  a  blessing — Windermere — Windermere! 

And  thus  we  robbed  all  England  of  her  beauty  and  her 
sublimity,  her  grandeur  and  her  magnificence,  and  bore  it 
all  off  and  away  treasured  in  our  heart  of  hearts.     Thus, 


202  vilson's  miscellakeous  writings. 

the  towers  and  temples  of  Oxford  were  haunted  with  new 
visions — thus  in  London  we  were  assailed  by  sounds  and 
sights  from  the  far-off  solitude  of  rocks,  and  cliffs,  and 
woods,  and  mountains,  on  whose  summits  hung  setting 
suns,  or  rose  up  in  spiritual  beauty  the  young  crescent 
moon,  or  crowded  unnumbered  planets,  or  shone  alone  in 
its  lustre, 

"  The  sta  r  of  Jove,  so  beautiful  and  large," 

as  if  the  other  eyes  of  heaven  were  afraid  to  sustain  the 
serenity  of  that  one  orb  divine  ! 

But  still  as  the  few  soul-brightening,  soul-strengthening 
suns  of  youth  rolled  on, — those  untamed  years,  of  which 
every  day,  it  might  seem  indeed  every  hour,  brought  the 
consciousness  of  some  new  knowledge,  some  new  feeling, 
that  made  the  present  greater  than  the  past,  and  was  giving 
perpetual  promise  of  a  still  greater  future, — promise  that 
was  the  divine  manna  of  hope — while  the  world  of  nature 
continued  to  our  eyes,  our  hearts,  and  our  imaginations, 
dearer  and  more  dear,  saddened  or  sublimed  by  associa- 
tions clothing  with  green  gladness  the  growth  of  the  young, 
with  hoary  sadness,  the  decay  of  the  old  trees, 

"  Moulding-  to  beauty  many  a  mouldering  lower ;" 

and  in  storm  or  sunshine,  investing  with  a  more  awful  or 
a  more  peaceful  character  the  aspect  of  the  many-shipped 
sea, — even  then,  wlien  the  world  of  the  senses  was  in  its 
prime,  and  light  and  music  did  most  prodigally  abound  in 
the  air  and  the  water,  in  the  heavens  and  on  the  earth,  we 
rejoiced  with  yet  a  far  exceeding  joy,  we  longed  with  yet 
a  far  exceeding  desire,  we  burned  with  yet  a  far  exceeding 
passion,  for  all  that  was  growing  momently  brighter  and 
more  bright,  darker  and  more  dark,  vaster  and  more  vast, 
within  the  self-discovered  region  of  mind  and  spirit! 
There  swept  along  each  passion,  like  a  great  wind — there 
the  sudden  thought 

"  Sliot  from  the  zenith  like  a  falling  star !" 

We  wished  not  to  "  have  lightened  the  burden  of  the  mys- 
tery of  all  that  unintelligible  world  !"     It  was  the  mystery 


A  midsummer-day's  dream.  203 

which,  trembling,  we  loved — awaking  suddenly  to  the 
quaking  of  our  own  hearts,  at  solitary  midnight  from  the 
divine  communion  of  dreams,  that  like  spirits  for  ever 
haunted  our  sleep. 

"  'Tis  mind  alone — bear  witness  heaven  and  earth  I — 
'Tis  mind  alone  that  in  itself  contains 
The  beauteous  or  sublime  I" 

Where  are  the  blasts  born  that  bring  the  clouds  across  the 
stars'?  Where  are  the  thoughts  born  that  bring  clouds 
across  our  souls  ?  The  study  of  physics  is  sublime,  for 
the  student  feels  as  if  mounting  the  lower  steps  of  the  lad- 
der leading  up  to  God  in  the  skies.  But  the  metaphysics 
of  our  own  moral,  our  own  intellectual  being,  sublimer  far! 
when  reason  is  her  own  object,  and  conscience,  by  her 
own  light,  sees  into  her  own  essence ! 

And  where  shall  such  studies  be  best  pursued?  Not 
alone  in  the  sacred  silence  of  the  academic  grove — although 
there  should  be  their  glimmering  beginnings,  and  there 
their  glorified  but  still  obscurest  end.  But  through  the 
dim,  doubting,  ani  often  sorely  disturbed  intermediate 
time,  when  man  is  commanded  by  the  being  within  him  to 
mingle  with  man,  when  smiles,  and  sighs,  and  tears,  are 
most  irresistible,  and  when  the  lotjk  of  an  eye  can  startle 
the  soul  into  a  passion  of  love  or  hate,  then  it  is  that  human 
nature  must  be  studied — or  it  will  remain  unknown  and 
hidden  for  ever — must  be  studied  by  every  human  being 
for  himself,  in  the  poetry  and  philosophy  of  life  !  As  that 
life  lies  spread  before  us  like  a  sea  !  At  first,  like  delighted, 
wondering,  and  fearful  children,  who  keep  gazing  on  the 
waves  that  are  racing  like  living  creatures  I'rom  some  far- 
off  region  to  these  their  own  lovely  and  beloved  shores, — 
or  still  with  unabated  admiration,  at  morning,  see  the  level 
sands  yellowing  far  away,  with  bands  of  beautiful  birds 
walking  in  the  sun,  or,  having  trimmed  their  snowy 
plumage,  wheeling  in  their  pastime,  with  many  wild-min- 
gled cries,  in  the  glittering  air, — with  here — there — yon- 
der some  vessel  seemingly  stranded,  and  fallen  helpless  on 
her  side,  but  waiting  only  for  the  tide  to  waken  her  from 
her  rest,  and  again  to  waft  her,  on  her  re-expanded  wings, 


204  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

away  into  the  main  !  Then,  as  the  growing  boy  becomes 
more  familiar  with  the  ebb  and  the  flow — with  all  the 
smiles  and  frowns  on  the  aspect — all  the  low  and  sweet, 
all  the  loud  and  sullen,  tones  of  the  voice  of  the  sea — in 
his  doubled  delight  he  loses  half  his  dread,  launches  his 
own  skitr,  paddles  with  his  own  oar,  hoists  his  own  little 
sail — and,  ere  long,  impatient  of  the  passion  that  devours 
him,  the  passion  for  the  wonders  and  dangers  that  dwell 
on  the  great  deep,  on  some  day  disappears  from  his  birth- 
place and  his  p.irents'  eyes,  and,  years  afterwards,  returns 
a  thoughtful  man  from  bis  voyaging  round  the  globe! 

Therefore,  to  know  ourselves,  we  sought  to  penetrate 
into  the  souls  of  other  men — to  be  with  them,  in  the  very 
interior  of  their  conscience,  when  they  thought  no  eye  was 
upon  them  but  the  eye  of  God.  'Twas  no  seclusion  of  the 
spirit  within  itself  to  take  cognizance  of  its  own  acts  and 
movements  ;  but  we  were  led  over  the  fortunes  and  works 
of  human  beings  wherever  their  minds  have  acted  or  their 
steps  liave  trod.  All  sorrow  and  all  joy,  the  calamities 
which  have  shaken  empires,  the  crimes  which  have  hurried 
single  souls  into  perdition,  the  grounds  of  stability,  just 
order,  and  power,  in  the  great  societies  of  men — the  peace 
and  happiness  that  have  blossomed  in  the  bosom  of  inno- 
cent life,  the  loves  that  have  interwoven  joy  with  grief,  the 
hopes  that  no  misery  can  overwhelm,  the  fears  that  no 
pleasure  can  assuage,  the  gnawing  of  the  worm  that  never 
dies,  the  bliss  of  conscience,  the  bale  of  remorse,  the  virtue 
of  the  moral,  and  the  piety  of  the  religious  spirit, — all 
these,  and  everything  that  human  life,  in  its  inexhaustible 
variety,  could  disclose,  became  the  subjects  of  inquiry, 
emotion,  thought,  to  our  intellect  seeking  knowledge  of 
human  nature,  to  us  a  student  desirous,  in  restless  and 
aspiring  youth,  to  understand  something  of  his  own  soul — 
of  that  common  being  in  which  he  lives  and  breathes,  and 
of  which,  from  no  other  source,  and  no  other  aid,  can  he 
ever  have  any  uninspired  revelation. 

Is  it  wonderful  then  that  we,  like  other  youths  with  a 
soul  within  them,  mingled  ourselves  and  our  very  being 
with  the  dark,  bright,  roaring,  hushed,  vast,  beautiful, 
magnificent,  guilty  and  glorious  London  ! 


A  midsummer-day's  dream.  205 

Coleridge,  that  rich-freighted  argosie,  tilting  in  sunshine 
over  imagination's  seas,  feared  not — why  should  he  have 
feared? — in  a  poem  of  his  youth — to  declare  to  all  men, 

"  To  me  hath  Heaven,  with  bounteous  hand,  assign'd 
Energic  reason  and  a  shaping  mind." 

That  boast  may  not  pass  our  lips !  Yet  what  forbids  us 
even  now  exultingly  to  say,  that  nature  had  not  withheld 
from  us  the  power  of  genial  delight  in  all  the  creations  of 
genius;  and  that  she  shrouded,  as  with  a  gorgeous  canopy, 
our  youth,  with  the  beauty  and  magnificence  of  a  million 
dreams?  Lovely  to  our  eyes  was  all  the  loveliness  that 
emanated  from  more  gifted  spirits,  and  in  the  love  with 
which  we  embraced  it,  it  became  our  very  own  !  We 
caught  the  shadows  of  high  thoughts  as  they  passed  along 
the  wall,  reflected  from  the  great  minds  meditating  in 
the  hallowed  shade !  And  thenceforth  they  peopled  our 
being!  Nor  haply  did  our  own  minds  not  originate  some 
intellectual  forms  and  combinations,  in  their  newness  fair, 
or  august — recognised  as  the  product  of  our  own  more 
elevated  moods,  although  unarrayed,  it  might  be,  in  words, 
or  passing  away  with  their  symbols  into  oblivion,  nor 
leaving  a  trace  behind — only  a  sense  of  their  transitory 
presence,  consolatory  and  sublime !  Even  then,  in  thy 
loud  streets,  O  London  !  as  the  remembrance  of  Scotland's 
silent  valleys  came  suddenly  and  softly  upon  our  hearts, 
a  wish,  a  hope,  a  belief  arose  that  the  day  might  come, 
when  even  our  voice  might  not  be  altogether  unlistened 
to  by  the  happy  dwellers  there, — haply  faint,  low,  and 
irregular,  like  the  song  of  some  bird — one  of  the  many 
linnets — in  its  happiness  half-afraid  to  tune  its  melodies, 
amidst  the  minstrelsy  of  Merle  and  Mavis,  with  which  the 
whole  forest  rings  ! 

Often  do  we  vainly  dream  that  time  works  changes 
only  by  ages — by  centuries !  But  who  can  tell  what  even 
an  hour  may  bring  forth  !  Decay  and  destruction  have 
"  ample  room  and  verge  enough,"  in  such  a  city;  and  in 
one  year  they  can  do  the  work  of  many  generations. 
This  century  is  but  young — scarcely  hath  it  reached  its 
prime.  But  since  its  first  year  rolled  round  the  sun,  how 
many  towers  and  temples  have  in  ever-changeful  Lon- 

VOL.  I.  18 


206  m'ilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

dou  "  gone  to  the  earth  !"  How  many  risen  up  whose 
"  statures  reach  the  sky !"  Dead  is  the  old  king  in 
his  darkness,  whom  all  England  loved  and  reverenced. 
Princes  have  died,  and  some  of  them  left  not  a  name — 
mighty  men  of  war  have  sunk,  with  all  their  victories  and 
all  their  trophies,  vainly  deemed  immortal,  into  oblivion  ! 
— Mute  is  the  eloquence  of  Pitt's  and  of  Canning's  voice ! 
In  that  Abbey,  the  thought  of  whose  sacred  silence  did 
often  touch  his  high  heart,  when  all  his  fleet  was  moored 
in  peace,  or  bearing  down  in  line  of  battle,  now  Nelson 
sleeps! — And  thousands,  unknown  and  unhonoured,  as 
wise,  or  brave,  in  themselves  as  good  and  as  great  as 
those  whose  temples  fame  hath  crowned  with  everlast- 
ing halo,  have  dropt  the  body,  and  gone  to  God.  How 
many  thousand  fairest  faces,  brightest  eyes,  have  been 
extinguished  and  faded  quite  away  !  Fairer  and  brighter 
far  to  him  whose  youth  they  charmed  and  illumined,  than 
any  eyes  that  shall  ever  more  gaze  on  the  flowers  of  earth, 
or  the  stars  of  heaven  ! 

Methinks  the  western  sun  shines  cooler  in  the  garden 
— that  the  shades  are  somewhat  deepened — that  the  birds 
are  not  hopping  round  our  head,  as  they  did  some  hour 
ago — that  in  their  afternoon  siesta  they  are  mute.  Another 
set  of  insects  are  in  the  air.  The  flowers,  that  erewhile 
were  broad  and  bright  awake,  with  slumbering  eyne  are 
now  hanging  down  their  heads ;  and  those  that  erewhile 
seemed  to  slumber,  have  awoke  from  their  day-dreams, 
and  look  almost  as  if  they  were  going  to  speak.  Have 
you  a  language  of  your  own — dear  creatures — for  we 
know  that  ye  have  loves?  But,  hark,  the  gong — the 
gong!  in  the  hand  of  John,  smiling  it  like  the  slave  of 
some  Malay-chief.  In  our  paradise  there  is  "  fear  that 
dinner  cool,"  mortal  man  must  eat — and  thus  endeth 

"  OUK  MIDSUMMER-DAV'S  DREAM." 


AN  ESSAY  ON  THE  THEORY  AND  THE  WRITINGS 
OF  WORDSWORTH. 

(Blackwood's  Edinburgh  Magazine,  1829.) 
PART  I. 

It  appears  to  me  that  the  poetry  of  Wordsworth,  always 
estimated  too  rapturously,  or  too  virulently  depreciated, 
has  never  been  placed  on  its  proper  level.  "  Then,  of 
course,"  cries  the  critic,  "  you  imagine  yourself  competent 
to  fix  it  in  its  appropriate  station."  If  I  were  to  say  no, 
you  would  not  believe  me  ;  and  if  I  say  yes,  I  go  beyond 
the  truth.  A  man,  when  he  professes  to  treat  of  a  subject, 
is  always  supposed,  by  courtesy,  to  be  master  of  that  sub- 
ject. He  is  obliged  to  place  himself  in  the  situation  of  a 
teacher,  and  to  regard  those  whom  he  addresses  as  his 
pupils,  although  he  may  be  conscious  that  his  povvers  are 
below  those  of  some  who  grant  him  their  attention.  This 
compelled  tone  of  superiority,  this  involuntary  dictatorship, 
must,  more  especially,  be  admitted  as  an  excuse  for  laying 
down  the  law  in  matters  of  taste.  Subjects  of  science, 
indeed,  may  be  handled  with  precision;  and  any  one,  after 
going  through  a  certain  course  of  study  and  experiment 
may,  without  arrogance,  assert,  "  These  things  are  so." 
Moral  and  sacred  subjects  again  may  appeal  to  a  fixed 
standard.  But  subjects  that  relate  to  taste  and  feeling," 
admit  not  of  such  exactness.  In  these  every  man  is  a  law 
unto  himself,  and  he  who  sets  himself  up  for  a  lecturer  on 
taste  can,  after  all,  only  give  his  own  opinion,  and  leave 
others  to  adopt  it  or  not,  according  to  their  several  notions 
of  right  and  wrong,  beauty  and  deformity.  One  qualifica- 
tion, at  least,  I  possess  for  the  task  I  have  undertaken.  I 
have  read,  as  I  believe,  every  line  that  Wordsworth  ever 
published.     Critic,  canst  thou  say  as  much? 


208  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

My  first  endeavour  will  be  to  show  that  Wordsworth's 
genius  is  overrated  by  his  partisans ;  my  second,  that  it 
is  underrated  by  his  detractors. 

Although  Wordsworth  has  never  been  a  popular  poet, 
in  the  extended  sense  of  the  word,  yet  what  he  has  lacked 
in  the  number  of  his  admirers,  has  been  made  up  to  him 
by  the  intensity  of  adoration  which  his  few  worshippers 
have  displayed.  A  true  disciple  of  his  school  said  to  me, 
"I  call  the  poetry  of  Wordsworth  an  actual  revelation;" 
and  I  have  heard  others  assert  that  his  writings  were  able 
to  work  a  moral  change  in  any  zealous  peruser  of  them. 
This  may  seem  strange  to  those  who  only  know  Words- 
worth's poetry  through  the  medium  of  passages  quoted 
from  the  Lyrical  Ballads,  or  perhaps  by  the  imitation  of 
his  style  in  the  Rejected  Addresses — an  imitation  which 
does  not  possess  one  true  characteristic  of  his  manner.  It 
is  the  mixture  of  philosophy  with  low  and  humble  subjects 
which  is  the  real  peculiarity  of  Wordsworth's  poetry — not, 
as  some  persons  imagine,  a  mere  childishness  both  of 
thought  and  meaning.  It  is  on  Wordsworth's  faith,  as 
viewed  in  connexion  with  its  poetical  practice,  that  his 
admirers  found  his  claim  to  great  and  original  excellence, 
and  they  thence  derive  their  prediction,  that  by  the  side  of 
Milton  his  station  will  be  awarded  him  by  posterity.  Un- 
like other  poets  who  leave  their  principles  of  composition 
to  be  deduced  from  their  works,  Wordsworth  lays  down 
certain  principles,  of  which  he  professes  his  poetry  to  be 
an  illustration.  He  is  a  theorist,  as  well  as  a  poet,  and 
may  be  considered  as  much  the  founder  of  a  sect  as  Plato 
or  Pythagoras.  This  connexion  between  his  peculiar  no- 
tions and  his  verse  obliges  me  to  consider  how  far  his 
theory  is  original,  how  far  it  is  just,  and  with  what  success 
he  has  illustrated  it  in  his  compositions.  I  must,  however, 
premise,  that  the  very  idea  of  fabricating  poetry  according 
to  a  set  theory,  is  an  unhappy  one.  That  a  thing,  which 
should  both  proceed  from,  and  address  itself  to,  the  feelings 
— which  ought  to  be  an  inspiration  and  a  divine  madness 
— should  mete  itself  out  by  rule  and  measure,  "  regulate  its 
composition  by  principles,"  and  carefully  adapt  its  language 
of  [)assion  to  a  code  of  s[)eech,  involves  an  essential  con- 
tradiction.    Where  was  Shakspeare's  theory  when  he  read 


WORDSWORTH.  209 

the  open  book  of  Nature,  and  transcribed  her  pages  upon 
his  own?  Where  was  Milton's  theory  when  he  was  rapt 
above  the  empyrean,  and  smote  his  mighty  harp  in  answer 
to  the  sounding  spheres  ?  Where  was  the  theory  of  Burns 
when  he  lived,  loved,  suffered,  and  wrote?  And  where, 
may  I  ask,  is  Wordsworth's  theory  when  he  writes  well  ? 
That  he  has  written  well,  even  gloriously,  I  allow.  That 
he  has  written  well  in  consequence  of  his  theory,  I  deny. 

But  let  us  inquire  what  his  theory  is.  Our  author  tells 
us  that  his  first  volume  of  poems  was  published  "  as  an 
experiment,  how  far  by  fitting  to  metrical  arrangement  a 
selection  of  the  real  language  of  men  in  a  state  of  vivid 
sensation,  that  sort  of  pleasure,  and  that  quantity  of  plea- 
sure, might  be  imparted,  which  a  poet  may  rationally  en- 
deavour to  impart."  If  these  words  be  taken  in  their  literal 
sense,  it  appears  to  me  that  the  experiment  was  scarcely 
worth  the  making ;  for  the  desired  fact  might  have  been 
ascertained  by  merely  considering,  that  those  parts  of 
Shakspeare  which  convey  the  most  general  pleasure,  are 
the  real  language  of  men  under  the  agency  of  some  strong 
passion.  The  touching  expression  of  Macduff,  "  He  has 
no  children  ;"  the  thrilling  exclamation  of  Othello  over  the 
body  of  Desdemona,  "  My  wife  ! — What  wife? — I  have  no 
wife!"  are  sufficient  to  show  that  th(!  simplest  language  of 
men,  when  strongly  moved,  may  give  pleasure  of  the  most 
exquisite  kind.  I  say  pleasure,  for  though  the  words  them- 
selves produce  a  mournful  impression,  yet  the  predomina- 
ting feeling  is  pleasure  to  see  Nature's  language  so  truly 
imitated.  Ballads  also  without  end,  in  which  the  real  lan- 
guage of  men  is  still  more  metrically  arranged,  would  have 
decided  the  same  question,  for  compositions  of  this  sort, 
from  Chevy  Chase  to  Black-eyed  Susan  and  Auld  Robin 
Gray,  have  ever  been,  like  the  simple  and  original  melo- 
dies which  are  ground  about  the  streets  on  every  hand- 
organ,  the  darlings  of  mankind,  in  every  class.  But  if, 
by  the  real  language  of  men  in  a  state  of  vivid  sensation, 
Wordsworth  meant  the  complaints  of  a  child  in  despair  at 
seeing  her  cloak  caught  in  a  chaise-wheel,  or  the  agonies 
and  ecstasies  of  a  foolish  poor  woman  who  sent  her  idiot 
son  for  a  doctor  on  a  moonlight  night,  he  might  have  con- 
vinced  himself  that  no   pleasing  result  would  ensue,  by 

18* 


210  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

merely  inquiring  whether  the  gustatory  ejaculations  of  a 
society  of  aldermen  over  a  bowl  of  turtle,  would  give 
pleasure  if  reduced  to  metre.  For  these  are  also  unques- 
tionably "  the  real  language  of  men  in  a  state  of  vivid 
sensation." 

Wordsworth,  however,  seems  to  have  considered  that 
this  experiment  succeeded  rather  beyond  his  expectations; 
and  having  "  pleased  a  greater  number  than  he  ventured 
to  hope  he  should  please,"  he  is  encouraged  to  proceed  in 
the  same  path,  and  to  explain  the  object  which  he  proposed 
to  himself  more  particularly.  Disentangling  the  chrysalis 
from  the  golden  threads  which  his  genius  has  spun  around 
it,  I  will  briefly  give  the  principal  points  of  his  system. 
He  chooses  "  incidents  and  situations,"  always  from  "  com- 
mon," and  generally  from  "  low  and  rustic  life."  He  de- 
sires to  elucidate  the  "primary  laws,"  "  ihe  great  and 
simple  affections  of  our  nature."  He  intends  that  each  of 
his  poems  "should  carry  along  with  it  Vi  purpose,'''' anii 
"  that  the  feeling  therein  developed  should  give  importance 
to  the  action  and  situation,  and  not  the  action  and  situa- 
tion to  the  feeling ;"  and  lastly,  he  professes  to  reject 
"  what  is  usually  called  poetic  diction,"  and  to  "  cut  him- 
self off  from  a  large  portion  of  phrases  and  figures  of  speech, 
which,  from  father  to  son,  have  long  been  regarded  as  the 
common  inheritance  of  poets." 

1  own  that  I  can  see  nothing  very  original  in  these  ob- 
jects proposed — little  that  has  not  been  done  before,  and 
by  others.  The  chief  originality  seems  to  consist  in  the 
formal  declaration  of  the  poet's  intentions,  and  in  his 
restricting  himself  to  one  department  of  his  province.  As 
I  remarked  before,  "  incidents  and  situations  in  common 
life"  have  generally  pleased,  as  coming  home  to  every  man's 
business  and  bosom.  No  tragedy  is  received  with  more 
tears,  or  with  more  applause  than  the  (iamester.  To  go 
a  step  farther, — Burns,  in  carolling  the  joys,  and  sorrows, 
and  simple  loves  of  rustic  life,  has  found  an  echo  in  every 
heart.  The  songs  of  Dibdin  arc  on  every  lip.  Shentonc's 
Schoolmistress  is  allowedly  his  best  poem.  Crabbe  ex- 
tracts humour  and  pathos  from  the  most  trite'  and  homely 
adventures.  As  to  Wordsworth's  declaration,  that  each 
of  his  poems  has  a  worthy  purpose,  he  himself  asserts. 


WORDSWORTH.  211 

that  this  will  be  found  to  be  the  case  in  "  all  poems  to 
which  any  value  can  be  attached;  therefore,  in  this  re- 
spect, he  only  places  himself  in  the  rank  of  a  good,  not 
an  original  writer.  As  to  the  circumstance,  which  he  tells 
us  distinguishes  his  poems  from  the  popular  poetry  of  the 
day,  viz.  that  the  feeling  dignifies  the  subject,  and  not  tlie 
subject  the  feeling,  I  shall  consider,  by  and  by,  whether  it 
be  not  calculated  to  produce  originality  of  a  vicious  kind, 
and  whether  there  should  not  rather  be  a  mutual  propor- 
tion between  the  subject  and  the  passion  connected  with  it. 
Our  author's  renunciation  of  such  phrases  and  figures  of 
speech  as  have  long  been  the  common  poetical  stock  in 
trade,  seems  again  only  to  place  him  in  a  higher  rank  than 
the  mere  schoolboy  poet,  who  pilfers  his  English  Gradus 
for  flowers  of  rhetoric.  Every  poet  that  rises  above  me- 
diocrity, knows  that  he  damns  himself  by  the  use  of  worn- 
out  tropes  and  metaphors.  Pope,  who  introduced  a  peculiar 
language  into  poetry,  a  set  mode  of  expressing  cerlain 
things,  was  original  as  the  first  founder  of  a  vicious  school, 
and  in  his  case  the  severe  good  sense  of  his  meaning 
atoned  for  the  tinkling  of  his  rhyme.  Darwin  was  origi- 
nal from  the  very  profusion  with  which  he  heaped  these 
commonplaces  together;  but  their  imitators  have  never 
risen  to  eminence  ;  and  originality  of  expression  seems  to 
be  expected  from  a  writer  of  any  pretensions.  But  Words- 
worth has  spoken  too  vaguely  on  this  head.  The  term 
poetic  diction,  seems  to  inier  a  diction  common  to  poets; 
but  the  language  of  metrical  composition  may  be  elevated 
beyond  that  of  prose  by  modes  as  various  as  the  authors 
who  use  it.  The  poetic  diction  of  Milton  is  not,  in  a  cer- 
tain sense,  that  of  Gray,  nor  is  that  of  Collins  in  its  exter- 
nal forms  similar  to  that  of  Cowper. 

I  am  the  more  explicit  on  this  point,  because  one  of 
Wordsworth's  principal  claims  to  originality  seems  to  lie 
in  his  having  formed  a  diction  of  his  own,  and  in  having 
run  counter  to  the  taste  of  the  age  in  so  doing.  He  mag- 
nifies his  own  boldness  by  asserting  that  an  author  is  sup- 
posed, "  by  the  act  of  writing  in  verse,  to  make  a  formal 
engagement  to  gratify  certain  known  habits  of  association, 
and  thus  to  apprise  his  reader  not  only  that  certain  classes 
of  ideas  and  cx[)ressions  will  be  found  in  his  book,  but  that 


212  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

others  will  be  carefully  excluded."  I  reply  to  this,  that 
the  love  of  novelty  is  stronger  in  man  than  habit  itself,  and 
that  there  would  be  nothing  to  gratify  this  inherent  thirst, 
if  we  met  with  nothing  but  the  same  classes  of  ideas  and 
expressions.  Wordsworth  grants  that  the  tacit  promise 
which  a  poet  is  supi)osed  to  make  his  reader,  has  in  difTerent 
eras  of  literature  excited  very  difierent  expectations,  as  in 
the  various  ages  of  Shakspeare,  of  Cowley,  and  of  Pope. 
I  ask,  what  made  the  ages  of  Shakspeare,  Cowley,  and 
Pope  ?  Their  own  genius.  It  is  the  era  that  conforms  to 
the  poet,  not  the  poet  to  the  age.  And  even  at  one  and 
the  same  period  there  have  been,  and  may  be,  as  many 
ditTerent  styles  of  writing,  as  there  are  great  and  original 
writers.  Spenser  was  contemporary  with  Shakspeare,  and 
in  our  own  day  more  especially  we  see  almost  as  many 
schools  of  poetry  as  there  are  poets.  Byron,  Scott, 
Soulhey,  Moore,  Campbell,  and  Crabbe,  have  not  only 
each  asserted  his  own  freedom,  but  have  easily  induced  the 
world  to  affix  its  sign  manual  to  their  charter.  1  should 
rather  affirm,  tiien,  that  a  poet  is  supposed  "  to  make  a 
formal  engagement"  to  produce  something  new, — to  be  a 
creator  indeed, — or  his  title  to  the  appellation  will  scarcely 
be  allowed.  It  follows,  then,  that  Wordsworth's  writings 
may  be  original,  in  as  far  as  they  diHer  from  the  produc- 
tions of  the  present  day,  but  not  because  they  difTer  from 
such  productions.  His  renouncing  the  common  poetic 
diction  is  not  an  original  part  of  his  theory,  however  it  may 
produce  originality  in  his  practice. 

Having  now  attempted  to  show  that  what  is  good  in 
W^ordsworth's  theory  is  not  new,  I  will  endeavour  to  prove 
that  what  is  new  is  not  good. 

Wordsworth  tells  us  that,  in  his  choice  of  situations  and 
incidents,  "low  and  rustic  life  was  generally  chosen,  be- 
cause, in  that  condition,  the  essential  passions  of  the  heart 
find  a  better  soil  in  which  they  can  attain  their  maturity, 
are  less  under  restraint,  and  speak  a  plainer  and  more 
emphatic  language."  I  answer,  that  they  do  so  or  not 
according  to  the  powers  of  hin)  who  is  their  interpreter.  I 
urge,  that  a  true  poet  finds  the  same  passions  in  every 
sphere  of  life,  and  makes  them  speak  a  ])lain  and  emphatic 
language  by  his   own  art.     Love  and  hatred,  hope   and 


WORDSWORTH.  213 

fear,  joy  and  sorrow,  lay  bare  the  human  heart,  beneath 
the  ennined  robe,  not  less  than  beneath  the  shepherd's 
frock,  and  strong  emotion  breaks  the  fetters  of  restraint  as 
easily  as  one  would  snap  asunder  a  silken  thread.  "  One 
touch  of  nature  makes  the  whole  world  kin."  Naked  we 
all  came  into  the  world,  naked  we  must  all  go  out  of  it, 
and  naked  we  all  appear,  in  a  mental  sense,  when  nature's 
strong  hand  is  upon  us.  Accordingly,  Shakspeare  makes 
his  Cleopatra  scold  like  any  scullion  wench,  when  the 
messenger  tells  her  of  Antony's  marriage  with  Octavia  ; 
nor  does  she  confine  her  rage  to  words,  but  expounds  it 
more  intelligibly  still  by  striking  the  unlucky  herald,  and 
*'  haling  him  up  and  down."  *  The  great  interpreter  of 
nature  contrives  to  "  keep  his  reader  in  the  company  of 
flesh  and  blood,  while  he  leads  him  through  every  sphere 
of  existence."  Wordsworth  also  chose  rural  life,  "because 
in  that  condition,  the  passions  of  men  are  incorporated 
with  the  beautiful  and  permanent  forms  of  nature."  I  fear 
that  more  of  the  poet  than  the  philosopher  is  apparent  in 
this  sentiment :  or,  if  Wordsworth  will  have  it  that  poet 
and  philosopher  are  nearly  synonymous  terms,  I  fear  that 
he  has  given  his  own  individual  feelings  as  representatives 
of  those  belonging  to  man  as  a  species. 

The  philosophic  poet  should  take  care  to  support  his 
theory  upon  facts  established  by  observation,  or  (as  Words- 
worth himself  elsewhere  says)  should  possess  "the  ability 
to  observe  with  accuracy,  think  as  they  are  in  themselves, 
and  with  fidelity  tu  describe  them,  unmodified  by  any  pas- 
sion or  feeling  existing  in  the  mind  of  the  describer:"  but 
Wordsworth,  though,  doubtless,  conversant  with  humble 
life,  has  thrown  the  lines  of  his  own  mind  over  its  whole 
sphere ;  otherwise  he  never  could  assert  that  the  passions 
of  men  in  that  condition  are  incorporated  with  the  beautiful 
and  permanent  forms  of  nature.     "  The  necessary  charac- 


*  Cleopatra  herself  says,  on  being  addressed  by  her  handmaid  Iras, 
as  "  Royal  Egypt's  Empress," 

"  Peace,  peace,  Ii-as, 
No  more  but  a  mere  woman,  and  commanded 
By  such  poor  passion  as  the  maid  that  milks. 
And  does  the  meanest  chares." 


214  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

ter  of  rural  occupations"  seems  rather  to  have  a  tendency 
to  blunt  the  mind's  sensibility  to  external  nature,  than  to 
sharpen  its  perceptions  of  grace  and  beauty.  "  Our  ele- 
mentary feelings,"  indeed,  may  be  said  to  co-exist  in  a 
state  of  greater  simplicity  in  humble  life — if  by  "elemen- 
tary feelings"  the  poet  means  such  feelings  as  are  con- 
nected with  the  care  of  our  subsistence.  To  support  life 
is  the  great  object  of  the  poor,  and  this  object  absorbs  their 
powers,  blunts  their  sensibilities,  and  confines  their  ideas 
to  one  track  of  association.  The  rustic  holding  his  plough 
looks  at  the  furrow  which  he  traces,  and  not  at  the  moun- 
tain which  soars  above  his  head.  The  shepherd  watches 
his  dog  and  his  sheep,  but  not  the  clouds  that  shift  their 
hues  and  forms  in  the  western  sky — or  if  he  regards  them, 
it  is  only  as  prognostics  of  such  and  such  weather.  I  have 
conversed  much  with  those  in  rustic  life,  and  amongst  them 
have  scarcely  ever  met  with  one  who  manifested  any  sym- 
pathy with  external  nature.  There  may  be  exceptions  to 
the  general  insensibility  of  the  poor,  but  Wordsworth  has 
mistaken  the  exceptions  for  illustrations  of  the  rule  itself.  If 
any  class  of  men,  in  a  low  station,  betoken  that  the  beau- 
tiful objects  of  nature  are  incorporated  with  their  passions, 
we  must  look  for  them  not  amongst  the  tillers  of  the  earth, 
but  amongst  those  who  occupy  their  business  in  the  great 
waters.  Sailors  have  leisure  to  admit  the  wonders  of 
nature  through  the  eye  into  the  mind.  The  stagnation  of 
a  calm,  or  the  steady  movement  of  their  vessel,  often  leaves 
them  unoccupied,  and  throws  their  attention  outward.  The 
natural  craving  of  the  mind  after  employment  makes  them 
seize  whatever  oflers  itself  to  fill  up  vacuity  of  thought, 
and  nature  becomes  less  their  chosen  pleasure  than  their 
last  resource.  Accordingly,  I  have  often  remarked  thai 
more  unconscious  poetry  drops  from  the  lips  of  sailors, 
than  from  men  in  any  other  low  station  of  life.  Again, 
the  affections  of  the  heart  become  deadened  in  the  poor,  or 
rather  change  their  character  altogether.  Life,  which  is 
so  hardly  sustained  by  them,  is  not  in  their  eyes  the  pre- 
cious thing  which  it  is  in  ours  ;  death,  which  ihey  only 
view  as  a  rest  from  toil  or  pain,  is  not  looked  upon  by  them 
with  the  same  emotion  with  which  we  regard  it.  Whether 
"  to  be,  or  not  to  be,"  is  a  question  which  they  decide  by 


WORDSWORTH.  215 

balance  of  utility.  A  poor  woman  once  said  (o  me,  "  If 
he  Lord  pleases  to  take  either  me  or  my  husband  from 
our  dear  children,  I  hope  my  husband  will  go  first ;  for  I 
think  1  could  do  better  for  them  than  he  could  ;"  and  I  am 
sure  she  gave  the  true  reason  for  wishing  to  survive  her 
partner,  and  was  not  influenced  in  her  wish  by  any  selfish 
love  of  life.  Plere  the  essential  passions  of  the  heart  (of 
which  love  between  the  sexes  may  be  considered  the  very 
strongest)  had  given  place  to  factitious  feelings  generated 
by  a  peculiar  condition  of  life,  and,  this  being  the  case, 
those  feelings  were  no  longer  elementary,  or  such  as  are 
common  to  all  mankind.  In  fact  there  seems  to  be  no 
surer  way  of  preventing  oneself  from  seeing  man  as  he  is, 
than  to  confine  one's  view  to  any,  even  the  most  apparently 
natural  condition  of  life.  Man  must  be  weighed  in  the 
gross,  before  he  can  be  estimated  in  the  abstract. 

Wordsworth,  moreover,  informs  us,  that  he  has  adopted 
the  very  language  of  men  in  low  and  rustic  life,  "  because 
such  men  hourly  communicate  with  the  best  objects  from 
which  the  best  part  of  language  is  originally  derived; 
and  because  from  their  rank  in  society,  and  the  sameness 
and  narrow  circle  of  their  intercourse  being  less  under  the 
influence  of  social  vanity,  they  convey  their  feelings  and 
notions  in  simple  and  unelaborated  expressions."  I  have 
before  attempted  to  show  that  the  "  hourly  communica- 
tions" of  these  men  are  with  their  implements  of  husbandry, 
and  that,  like  oil  and  water,  they  and  the  beautiful  forms 
of  nature  may  be  in  perpetual  contact,  without  becoming 
incorporated.  That  they  are  less  under  the  influence  of 
social  vanity  I  doubt,  and  for  the  very  same  reason  that 
Wordsworth  believes  it,  viz.  from  the  narrow  circle  of  their 
intercourse;  for  the  fewer  opportunities  men  have  of  com- 
paring themselves  with  numbers,  the  less  do  they  know 
their  own  deficiencies, — and  I  doubt  not  but  that  the  va- 
nity of  an  alehouse  politician  is  as  great  as,  and  infinitely 
more  besotted  than,  the  vanity  of  a  member  of  parliament. 
I  have  also  little  doubt,  but  that  the  contempt  with  which  a 
ploughman  would  look  down  upon  me  for  not  knowing 
oats  from  barley,  would  transcend  that  of  an  astronomer 
at  my  not  being  able  to  distinguish  between  Cassiopea  and 
Ursa  Major.     However  we  human  beings  may  differ  in 


216  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

other  respects, — in  station,  in  language,  temper,  and  dispo- 
sition— here  at  least  we  are  all  alike.  Pour  into  separate 
vessels  the  blood  of  various  men,  analyze  it,  distil  it,  till 
all  factitious  differences  evaporate  and  disappear,  and  I 
will  answer  for  it  that  there  will  be  found  a  large  residuum 
of  vanity  at  the  bottom  of  each  alembic. 

Wordsworth  cives  as  a  reason  for  his  deducing  strong 
feelings  from  low  and  unimportant  subjects,  that  "  the  hu- 
man mind  is  capable  of  being  excited  without  the  application 
of  gross  and  violent  stimulants;"  and  that  "one  being  is 
elevated  above  another,  in  proportion  as  he  possesses  this 
capability."  There  appears  to  be  a  mixture  of  truth  and 
falsehood  in  this  sentiment.  The  mind  that  demands  the 
violent  excitement  of  "  frantic  novels"  or  the  gross  nutri- 
ment of  "sickly  and  stupid  German  tragedies,"  is,  I  grant, 
indeed  in  a  diseased  state;  but  that  the  mind  is  in  a  sane  state 
i7i  'proportion  as  it  recedes  from  this  diseased  torpor,  1  deny. 
For  it  may  recede  until  it  shall  have  crossed  the  boundary 
line  which  separates  the  height  of  what  is  good,  from  its 
declension  into  evil  of  an  opposite  kind.  A  person  who, 
by  improper  abstinence,  shall  have  brought  himself  into 
such  a  state  that  he  is  intoxicated  by  milk  and  water,  is 
not  less  an  invalid  than  he  who,  by  perpetual  intemperance, 
has  blunted  his  senses,  until  he  calls  for  brandy  in  his 
wine.  In  the  same  manner,  the  mind  may  be  too  excit- 
able, as  well  as  too  dead  to  gentle  and  healthful  excitement. 
If  one  being  be  indeed  elevated  above  another  in  2y>'oportio7i 
as  his  mind  is  capable  of  being  excited  without  a  violent 
stimulus,  then  is  the  man  who  goes  into  ecstasies  at  the 
sight  of  a  sparrow's  egg  the  first  of  his  species.  But  per- 
haps this  was  precisely  what  our  auihor  wished  to  prove. 
After  ail,  may  not  a  violent  stimulus  be  of  a  salutary 
nature,  and  in  some  cases  necessary  to  bring  back  a  health- 
ful state  of  feeling?  A  strong  medicine  can  alone  master 
a  strong  disease;  and  if  (as  Wordsworth  imagines)  the 
minds  of  the  present  generation  are  "  in  a  state  of  almost 
savage  torpor,"  can  they  be  aroused  by  the  mere  prick  of 
a  pin — if  they  thirst  so  wildly  "  after  the  outrageous  stimu- 
lation," will  they  pass  at  once  from  mulligatawney  soup 
to  mutton  broth  1     If  it  be   true,  as   Covvper   says,  that 


WOHDSWORTH.  217 

"  A  kick  which  scarce  would  move  a  horse, 
May  kill  a  sound  divine," 

our  kicks  must  be  proportioned  to  the  animal  on  which 
they  are  inflicted.     A  gentle  shove  will  never  do. 

In  order  to  justify  himself  for  adopting  (as  he  thinks  he 
has)  "  the  very  language  of  men,"  Wordsworth  asserts 
a  most  untenable  proposition,  viz.  "  that  there  neither  is 
nor  can  be  any  essential  difference  between  the  language 
of  prose  and  metrical  composition."  He  thinks  "  it  would 
be  a  most  easy  task  to  prove  this,  by  innumerable  pas- 
sages from  almost  all  the  poetical  writings,  even  of  Milton 
himself;"  but  he  confines  himself  to  quoting  the  following 
sonnet  of  Gray,  in  order  "  to  illustrate  the  subject  in  a  gene- 
ral manner  ? 

"  In  vain  to  me  the  smiling  morning's  shine, 
And  reddening  Phcebus  lifts  his  golden  fire : 
The  birds  in  vain  their  amorous  descant  join, 
Or  cheerful  fields  resume  their  green  attire. 
These  cars,  alas  !  lor  other  notes  repine; 
A  different  object  do  these  eyes  require; 
My  lonely  anguish  melts  no  heart  but  mine, 
And  in  my  breast  th''  imperfect  joys  expire. 
Yet  morning  smiles  the  busy  race  to  cheer, 
And  new-born  pleasure  brings  to  happier  men  ; 
The  fields  to  all  their  wonted  tribute  bear  ; 
To  warn  their  little  loves  the  birds  complain, 
I  fruitless  mourn  to  him  that  cannot  hear, 
And  weep  the  more  because  I  weep  in  vain." 

He  observes  upon  this  :  "  It  will  easily  be  perceived  that 
the  only  part  of  this  sonnet  which  is  of  any  value,  is  the 
lines  printed  in  italics  ;  it  is  equally  obvious  that,  except  in 
the  rhyme,  and  in  the  use  of  the  single  word  "  fruitless," 
for  fruitlessly  (which  is  so  far  a  defect,)  the  language  of 
these  lines  does  in  no  respect  differ  from  that  of  prose." — 
"  It  will  easily  be  perceived." — By  whom  ?  By  Mr.  Words- 
worth. "  It  is  equally  obvious."  To  whom  ?  To  Mr.  Words- 
worth. Thus  apt  we  are  unconciously  to  substitute  our  own 
ipse  dixits  for  the  general  consent  of  mankind.  So  far  from 
easily  perceiving  the  five  lines  in  italics  the  only  ones  of 
any  value  in  the  sonnet,  I  seem  to  perceive  that  they  are 
worthless  and  unintelligible  without  the  other  nine.     "  A 

VOL.  I.  19 


218  Wilson's  miscellaneous  avritings. 

dilfcrcnt  object  do  these  eyes  require." — DifTcrcnt  from 
what  ?  From  the  "  smilinrj  mornins-s,"  and  the  sun's 
"  golden  lire  !"  "  My  lonely  anguish  melts  no  heart  but 
mine." — In  contrast  to  what?  To  the  birds  who  "  join 
tlieir  amorous  descant."  "  I  fruitless  mourn  to  him  that 
cannot  hear,  and  weep  the  more  because  I  weep  in  vain." 
How  unafTecting  is  this  complaint  disjoined  from  that 
which  aggravates  the  written  sorrow — the  general  joy  of 
nature  previously  described  ! 

Having  shown  how  easily  the  truth  of  Wordsworth's 
first  assertion  may  be  perceived,  I  grant  that  it  is  equally 
obvious  that  the  language  of  the  lines  in  italics  does  in  no 
respect  differ  from  that  of  prose.  There  can  be  no  ques- 
tion, but  that  if  any  one  were  about  to  express  in  prose 
that  he  had  no  one  to  share  his  joy  or  sorrow,  he  would 
talk  of  "  lonely  anguish,"  and  "  imperfect  joys."  But 
the  fact  is,  that  no  man  would  dream  of  expressing  such 
thoughts  in  prose  at  all;  which  leads  me  to  assert  that 
poetry  does  differ  from  prose  in  two  essential  points,  viz. 
in  the  cast  of  the  thoughts,  and  the  nature  of  the  language. 
By  the  act  of  writing  in  metre,  we  place  ourselves  in 
communion  with  the  best  part  of  our  species,  and  we  enjoy 
a  license  to  speak  of  the  higher  feelings  of  our  nature 
without  the  fear  of  ridicule.  Poetry  is  a  language  accord- 
ed to  beings  of  greater  sensibility  than  the  rest  of  mankind, 
as  a  vent  to  thoughts,  the  suppression  of  which  would  be 
too  painful  to  be  endured.  Our  ideas,  therefore,  in  poetry, 
run  in  a  purer,  a  more  imaginative,  a  more  impassioned 
vein,  than  in  prose  ;  and  as  to  write  poetry  presupposes 
the  presence  of  some  emotion,  there  is  in  poetry  an  abrupt- 
ness of  transition  caused  by  excitement,  which  is  not  to  be 
found  in  prose.  The  language  of  poetry  partakes  of  the 
same  character  as  its  thoughts.  Since  the  poet's  eyes 
"  bodies  forth  the  shape  of  things  unknown,  and  gives  to 
airy  nothing  a  local  hai)itation  and  a  name,"  the  words  of 
poetry  are  images.  She  speaks  in  [)ictures.  Take  any 
speech  of  Shakspeare,  and  observe  how  almost  every 
word  touches  upon  a  train  of  associated  ideas.  In  poetry, 
language  is  but  the  echo  of  something  more  than  meets 
the  ear:  it  is  a  spell  to  suggest  trains  of  thoughts  as  well 
as  to  express  them.  If  poetry  and  prose  be  so  identica 
that  we  cannot  "  find  bonds  of  connexion  sufficiently  strict 


WORDSWORTH.  219 

to  typify  the  aflinity  between  them," — if  the  language  of 
poetry  differ  not  from  that  of  good  prose,  it  follows  that 
all  good  prose  is  poetry.  But  surely  the  prose  in  wliich 
an  historian  narrates  his  facts  may  be  good^  and  yet 
no  one  would  allow  it  to  be  the  language  of  poetry. 
Unfortunately,  too,  such  prose  as  most  resembles  poetry 
is  not  good.  Although  Wordsworth  says,  that  "  lines 
and  passages  of  metre  so  naturally  occur  in  writing  prose, 
that  it  would  be  scarcely  possible  to  avoid  them,  even 
were  it  desirable,"  yet  the  prose,  which  contains  such 
disjccti  tnemhra  poetce^  is  generally  considered  vicious. 
There  is  a  swell  and  cadence  in  the  periods  of  prose, 
essentially  different  from  the  rhythm  of  poetry.  Therefore, 
when  a  poet  writes  in  prose,  his  thoughts  are  too  passion- 
ate, his  style  generally  too  concise,  too  abrupt,  and  at  the 
same  time  in  too  measured  a  cadence ;  and  on  the  con- 
trary, when  a  good  prose  writer,  attem|)ts  to  compose 
poetry,  his  thoughts  are  of  too  cold  a  complexion,  his  lan- 
guage too  stiff  from  unusual  restraint,  his  words  too  un- 
coloured  by  imagination,  too  exact  and  literal  in  their 
signification.  The  full  mantle  of  Cicero's  eloquence  flowed 
but  ungracefully  when  confined  by  the  hand  of  poetry. 
Why  is  it,  if  prose  and  poetry  speak  the  same  language, 
that  so  many  great  prose  writers  have  vainly  tried  to 
snatch  the  poet's  wreath?  Let  any  one  take  a  well- 
expressed  idea  in  prose.  Would  it  be  well  expressed  in 
poetry  1  Try  to  turn  it  into  poetry.  You  must  recast  it, 
and  change  the  whole  method  of  expression.  You  must 
even  endeavour  to  forget  the  words  in  which  it  was 
clothed,  and  having  to  melt  it  into  a  pure  idea,  to  run  it 
into  a  new  mould  of  expression. 

But  "  1  will  go  further"  still,  (as  Wordsworth  says.) 
"  I  do  not  doubt  that  it  may  be  safely  affirmed,"  (as 
Wordsworth  also  says,)  that  the  mere  language  of  poetry, 
exclusive  of  the  thoughts  which  it  may  convey,  is  a  sufli- 
cient  distinction  between  poetry  and  prose  (as  Words- 
worth does  not  say.) 

Let  me  not  be  mistaken  ;  I  speak  not  of  such  a  distinc- 
tion as  is  produced  by  rhyme,  or  even  metre.  I  speak 
not  of  "  those  ordinary  devices  to  elevate  the  style," 
which  W^ordsworth  abjures,  such  as  "  the  personification 
of  abstract  ideas  j"  the  invocation,  whether  to  Goddess, 


220  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

Nymph,  or  Muse — the  use  of  glittering  and  prescriptive 
epithets,  "  the  family  language"  of  (bad)  poets — I  speak 
of  the  imaginative  use  of  language  as  the  distinguishing 
mark  betwixt  poetry  and  prose.  To  exemplify  my  mean- 
ing, I  will  bring  forward  two  passages — the  one  from 
Shakspeare,  in  which  common  thoughts  become  poetry, 
by  the  mode  of  expressing  them ;  the  other  from  Gibbon, 
in  which  a  poetical  thought  becomes  prose  by  the  mere 
language  wherein  it  is  couched.     Coriolanus  speaks — 

"  I'll  know  no  further  : 
Let  them  pronounce  the  steep  Tarpcian  death, 
Vagabond  exile,  fleaing,  pent  to  linger 
But  with  a  grain  a-day,  I  would  not  buy 
Their  mercy  at  the  price  of  one  fair  word, 
Nor  check  my  courage  for  what  they  can  give. 
To  havc't  with  saying,  Good-morrow." 

The  thoughts  here  are  not  such  as  can  be  called  poetical 
— nor  is  there  any  thing  in  the  mere  words  (if  each  be 
taken  separately)  which  is  at  all  different  from  prose. 
It  is  in  the  mode  of  using  the  words  that  the  language 
becomes  poetry.  In  prose,  Coriolanus  would  have  said, 
— I'll  know  no  more.  Let  them  condemn  me  to  die  by 
the  Tarpcian  rock,  to  banishment,  to  be  flead  alive,  to  a 
lingering  death  by  hunger,  &c. ;  but  in  poetry  he  says 
"  I'll  know  no  ficrtlier.  Let  them  pronounce  the  steep 
Tarpeian  death,  vagabond  exile,"  &c.  Here  even  the 
very  use  of  the  common  word  further  is  poetical,  as 
closing  up  the  sense  to  the  mind  more  perfectly  than  the 
word  more,  and  substituting  an  adverb  for  an  accusative 
noun,  in  the  vehemence  with  which  passion  wrests  lan- 
guage to  her  own  purposes.  "  Let  them  pronounce  the 
steep  Tarpeian  death,"  is  an  instance  of  the  mode  in 
which  passion,  acting  upon  imagination,  condenses  many 
ideas,  and  conveys  them  all  to  the  hearer's  mind  at  once. 
To  give  every  word  in  this  line  its  proper  meaning  in 
prose,  we  must  say,  "  Let  them  condemn  me  to  die,  by 
being  cast  down  the  steep  Tarpcian  rock  ;"  but  in  the 
rapidity  of  passion,  not  ov\\y  judgment  is  pronounced  but 
death — that  death  is  not  slowly  produced  by  the  fall  from 
the  steep  Tarpeian  rock,  but  is  itself  stecjo  ;  and  although 
a  steep)  death  is  an  unintelligible  expression,  yet  by  the 


WOUDSWORTII.  221 

divine  clearness  with  whicli  iniaginalion,  in  her  lofty 
moods,  sees  every  thing  at  a  glance,  she  succeeds  in 
stamping  her  whole  moaning  upon  the  mind  of  another, 
by  the  general  structure  of  the  sentence. — We  will  now 
proceed  to  the  passage  from  Gibbon's  Decline  ol"  the 
Roman  I'^mpirc  :  "  The  apparent  magnitude  of  an  object 
is  enlarged  by  an  unequal  corni)arison,  as  the  ruins  of 
Palmyra  derive  a  casual  s|)lcndour  Irom  the  nakedness  of 
the  surrounding  desert."  Here  the  thought  is  poetical, 
and  the  words  in  which  it  is  dressed  are  far  longer,  and 
more  sounding,  than  the  words  of  the  passage  just  quoted 
from  Shakspcare,  (which  indeed  almost  consists  of  mono- 
syllables,) yet,  from  not  being  used  in  an  imaginative 
manner,  they  produce  but  a  cold  effect  upon  the  mind  : 
the  reason  is  gratified,  but  the  heart  remains  untouched 
by  them.  We  feel  that  this  is  not  poetry  ;  we  see  that 
every  word  is  chosen  with  scientific  precision,  that  each 
has  its  natural  and  downright  signification,  that  nothing 
more  is  suggested  than  what  is  actually  expressed  ;  we 
know  that  the  writer  very  calmly  elaborated  both  the  idea 
and  the  language  in  his  own  warm  study,  and  at  his  own 
comfortable  desk — and  we  feel  that  this  is  not  poetry. 
Yet  who  can  doubt  but  that  the  same  thought,  under 
Shakspeare's  touch,  would  have  started  into  Promethean 
life  and  energy?  Thus  it  appears  that  Poetry  has  a  lan- 
guage of  her  own.  To  identify  her  with  Prose,  is  a 
degradation  of  her  lofty  lineage.  Hers  is  a  higher  mode 
of  speech,  and  for  higher  purposes.  Poetry  can  speak 
what  Prose  hath  no  voice  to  utter.  She  is  (as  Words- 
worth himself  elsewhere  most  beautifully  says)  "  the 
breath  and  finer  spirit  of  all  knowledge — the  impassioned 
expression,  which  is  in  the  countenance  of  all  science." 
Is  it  not  a  contradiction  thus  to  describe  her,  yet  deny 
that  she  speaks  a  language  accordant  with  her  more 
subtle  essence,  and  more  impassioned  energy  ?  By  strip- 
ping her  of  all  essential  characteristics,  Wordsworth  would 
leave  her  nothing  but  the  jingling  of  her  bells,  whereby 
she  might  be  distinguished  frum  Prose. 

And  this,  so  far  from  being  the  least  distinction,  is  no 
distinction  at  all.  If  neither  the  cast  of  the  thoughts  nor 
the  structure  of  the  language  be  jjoctical,  in  a  composition, 

19* 


222  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

it  is  not  metrical  arrangement  which  will  constitute  poetry. 
Are  the  following  lines,  written  by  Wordsworth,  (for  in- 
stance) to  be  called  poetry  because  they  are  printea  in  ten 
syllables? 

"  'Tis  nothing  more 
Tlian  the  rude  embryo  of  a  little  dome, 
Or  pleasure-liousc,  once  destined  to  be  built 
Among'  the  bircli-trces  of  this  rocky  isle. 
But,  as  it  chanced,  Sir  Willi;im  having  learn'd 
That  from  the  shore  a  full-giown  man  might  wade, 
And  make  himself  a  freeman  of  this  spot 
At  any  hour  he  chose ;  the  knight  forthwith 
Desisted,  and  the  quarry  and  the  mound 
Are  monuments  of  his  unfinish'd  task." 

Of  this  we  may  indeed  say,  with  rather  more  truth  than 
of  Gray's  sonnet,  that  "it  will  easily  be  perceived"  "  the 
language  of  these  lines  does  in  no  respect  differ  from  that 
of  prose,"  whether  of  good  prose  I  leave  it  to  the  reader's 
judgment  to  decide.  The  only  poetical  mode  of  expres- 
sion to  be  found  in  them  is,  "  made  himself  a  freeman  of 
the  spot,"  which  again  exemplifies  what  I  said  above 
respecting  the  imaginative  use  of  language.  1  would  con- 
clude this  part  of  my  subject,  by  asking  Mr.  Words- 
worth how  it  is  (if  the  language  of  prose  and  poetry  be 
the  same)  that  the  language  of  his  own  prose  and  of  his 
own  poetry  are  so  very  different  ?  how  it  happens  that, 
professing  to  speak  the  real  language  of  men  in  the  latter, 
he  speaks  the  language  (it  may  be)  of  gods  in  the  former? 
For  example,  "  Religion — whose  element  is  infinitude,  and 
whose  ultimate  trust  is  the  supreme  of  things,  submitting 
lierself  to  circumscription,  and  reconciled  to  substitutions; 
and  Poetry,  ethereal  and  transcendent,  yet  incapable  to 
sustain  her  existence  without  sensuous  incarnation  !"  To 
sum  up  all ;  it  appears  to  me  that  Wordsworth  has  con- 
founded poetic  diction  as  it  is  called,  with  poetic  diction 
as  it  really  is.  He  has  attacked  a  poetic  diction  founded 
on  a  mechanical  abuse  of  language.  I  wish  to  uphold  a 
poetic  diction  founded  on  the  imaginative  use  of  language 
— a  poetic  diction  that  depends  not  on  the  shifting  taste 
of  different  eras,  or  on  trifling  varieties  of  costume,  but 
which  is  immovably  fixed  on  the  one  grand  and  unaltera- 


WORDSWORTH.  223 

blo  basis — a  poetic  diction,  which  is  the  country's  lan- 
guage of  all  true  poets,  (including  Wordsworth  himself, 
when  he  forgets  his  theory,)  however  their  difTercnt  pro- 
vinces may  produce  varieties  of  dialect.  Thus,  in  spite  of 
Wordsworth's  declaration  to  the  contrary,  I  assert  (and 
are  not  my  assertions  as  good  as  those  of  any  other 
man?)  that  poetry  is  a  good  and  sound  antithesis  to 
prose. 

By  maintaining  that  poetry  should  speak  the  same  lan- 
guage with  prose,  Wordsworth  is  driven  to  assert  another 
paradox,  very  lowering  to  the  divine  powers  of  the  former. 
He  says  :  "  Whatever  portion  of  the  faculty  (namely,  of 
embodying  the  passions  of  man,  and  of  expressing  what 
he  thinks  and  feels)  we  may  suppose  even  the  greatest 
poet  to  possess,  there  cannot  be  a  doubt  but  that  the  lan- 
guage which  it  will  suggest  to  him,  must,  in  liveliness  and 
truth,  fall  far  short  of  that  which  is  uttered  by  men  in  real 
life,  under  the  actual  pressure  of  those  passions,  certain 
shadows  of  which  the  poet  thus  produces,  or  feels  to  be 
produced,  in  himself."  To  this  I  answer,  that,  if  poetry 
be  "  the  finer  spirit  of  all  knowledge,"  it  is,  more  emphati- 
cally, the  finer  spirit  of  all  passion  ;  for,  while  knowledge 
is  only  the  light  of  poetry,  passion  is  her  life  and  vital  air. 
A  true  poet  can,  by  his  verses,  convey  to  the  mind  the 
general  effect  of  a  battle  with  greater  force  and  fidelity 
than  an  actual  agent  in  the  combat  by  a  prose  narration. 
The  latter  can  only  place  certain  facts  before  us :  the 
former  can  hurry  us  into  the  midst  of  the  smoke  and  car- 
nage— make  us  see  tha  bayonets  gleaming  through  the 
dust  of  trampling  thousands — and  make  us  hear  the  dying 
groan — the  shout  of  victory  !  The  one  convinces  us  that 
he  himself  was  present  at  the  scene;  the  other  persuades 
us  into  a  conviction  that  we  ourselves  are  present  there. 
The  poet's  description  is  actually  more  true  than  that  of 
the  soldier,  because  it  is  more  graphical,  and  produces  on 
the  mind  a  greater  sense  of  reality  ;  besides  that  the  eye- 
witness mixes  up  too  much  of  his  own  personal  feeling — 
too  much  of  the  confusion  of  a  mind  in  action — to  convey 
truth  in  the  abstract  to  the  mind  of  another.  But  poetry 
is  the  very  abstract  of  truth.  I\Iany  travellers  have  de- 
scribed, as  eye-witnesses,  the  burning  of  Hindoo  widows ; 


224  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

yet,  in  some  book  of  Eastern  travels,  I  have  seen  Southey's 
poetical  account  of  that  revolting  ceremony  extracted  from 
the  Curse  of  Kehama,  as  conveyini,'-  the  best  idea  of  its 
horrors.  In  the  same  manner  the  language  which  a  true 
poet  gives  to  any  human  passion,  is  actually  a  more  faith- 
ful transcript  of  that  passion  than  the  language  of  him  who 
is  under  its  actual  pressure.  In  the  first  place  the  great 
passions 

" are  likcn'd  best  to  floods  and  streams  : 

The  shallow  murmur,  but  the  deep  are  dumb." 

They  have  no  language  but  looks  and  tears.  There- 
fore the  poet's  language  is  not  a  transcription  of  what  men 
say  when  they  are  strongly  moved,  but  an  interpretation 
of  what  i\\ey  feci.  And  the  poet  has  this  advantage  over 
nature  herself;  namely,  that  he  can  at  once  depict  her 
internal  i)romptings,  and  her  external  indications  of  pas- 
sion. He  can  bring  looks  and  tears  before  the  eye.  In 
his  verses,  men  both  weep  and  speak.  In  the  next  place, 
if  great  passions  speak  at  all,  they  usually  belie  them- 
selves by  an  inadequacy  of  utterance.  The  language  of 
the  poet  is  actually  more  genuine  nature  than  that  of  the 
sufferer  himself,  because  the  former  is  the  language  of  the 
heart,  which  the  latter  is  not.  How  frequently,  when  a  man 
has  lost  his  wife  or  daughter,  his  condoling  friends  hear 
him  repeat,  "  She  was  a  good  creature  !  No  one  knows 
what  a  loss  I  have  had  !  No  one  can  tell  what  I  suffer  !" 
And  this  is  all  he  can  say,  for  the  anarchy  of  his  thoughts 
is  like  a  guard  upon  his  lips.  But  the  poet  does  know, 
and  can  tell  what  he  suffers,  and  not  only  produces  "  cer- 
tain shadows"  of  his  feelings,  but  the  reality  itself.  And 
why?  ]?ccause  the  poet  is  himself  a  man,  and  because, 
like  other  men,  the  poet  has  relations  and  friends  who  arc 
subject  to  death,  and  he  also  has  his  causes  of  joy  and 
sorrow  ;  and  if  (as  Wordsworth  grants)  a  poet  "  is  a  man 
endowed  with  more  lively  sensibility,  more  enthusiasm 
and  tenderness,"  than  others  ;  if  he  also  possess  "  a  greater 
knowledge  of  human  nature,"  why  (even  painting  from 
himself)  may  he  not  give  a  more  tender  and  enthusiastic 
langnnge  to  joy  or  sorrow,  a  deeper  insight  into  the  core 


WORDSWORTH.  225 

of  the  human  heart,  than  other  men  who  are  mere  suf- 
ferers?    The  poet  is  a  man  in  real  life,  and  a  poet  beside; 
and  therefore  he  can  feel  not  only  as  a  man,  but  can,  as  a 
poet,  give  a  more  faithful  utterance  to  what  he  feels.    Who 
knows  but   that   Shakspearc,  in  painting  the  jealousy  of 
Othello,  or  the  paternal  anguish  of  Lear,  was  but  giving 
a  keener  and  more  imaginative  colouring  to  some  passages 
of  his  own  life?     Who  can  tell  but  that  Eve  was  only  a 
sublimated  Mrs.  Milton  1     For  herein,  also  the  poet's  more 
lively  sensibility  aids  his  delineation  of  strong  passion,  in 
that  he  feels  small  things   more  acutely  than  men  of  dull 
and  sluggish  imagination  feel  great  ones,  and  that  the  very 
shadows  of  his   mind  are   stronger  than   the  realities  of 
others.     It  is  granted,  that  men,  as  they  grow  older,  are 
less  and  less  moved  by  any  event  or  accident,  and  even 
the  loss  of  a  favourite  grandson  may  less  move  the  blunted 
sensibilities  of  a  nonagenarian,  than  the  loss  of  a  pointer 
would  have  excited  them  when  he  was  fifteen.     Shall  we 
say,  then,   that  the  language  of  such  a  man,  under  the 
pressure  of  any  passion,  is  equal  in   energy  to  that  which 
is  uttered  by  a  man  in   the  prime   of  life,    and  under  a 
similar   pressure  ?     But  there  is   not    a  greater  distance 
between  the  passions  of  the  nonagenarian  and  those  of  the 
youth  of  fifteen,  than  there  is  between  the  poet's  capacity 
of  feeling  and  expression,  and  that  of  men,  on  whose  hearts 
a  natural  want  of  susceptibility  has  anticipated  the  slow 
work  of  time.     I  would   recommend    to  my  readers  the 
perusal  of  a  poem  but   little  known,  written  by  John  Scott 
on  the  death  of  his  son,  as  an  illustration  of  what  I  have 
advanced.    He  will  see  in  it  an  instance  of  the  poetical  tem- 
perament acted  upon  by  suffering,  and  speaking  with  more 
Ibrce  and  truth  than  the  language  of  suffering  alone  could 
exhibit.     Again,  if  the  language  of  the  poet  fall  short  of 
that  which  is  uttered  by  men  in  real  life  under  the  pressure 
of  passion,  the  short-hand  writer,  who  takes  down  trials, 
and  gives  us  verbatim  the  prison  dialogues  and  last  dying 
speeches  of  convicts,  must  bid   fair  to  be  a  greater  dra- 
matist than  Shakspeare  or  Ford.     Away,  then,  with  such 
timid   restrictions  of  the  poet's  power  !     What  boundary 
shall  we  place  to  it?     It  may;be  answered — Nature  !     But 
Nature  is  boundless;  and  though,  indeed,  the  poet  feels 


226  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

that  "  there  is  no  necessity  to  trick  out  or  elevate"  her 
infinite  wonders;  yet,  with  a  soul  as  boundless  as  herself, 
ho  does  not  despair  to  depict  thcni  faithfully — ay,  or  even 
to  transcend  what  he  beholds — by  the  divine  faculty  with 
which  he  piercps  things  invisible.  His  muse,  indeed,  sheds 
"  natural  and  human  tears  ;"  but  what  forbids  that  she 
should  not  also  drop  tears  "  such  as  angels  weep  ?" 

Holding  such  opinions  as  these,  which  I  have  endea- 
voured to  controvert,  Wordsworth  seems  to  surmise,  that 
persons  may  think  it  a  little  strange  that  he  should  take 
the  trouble  to  write  in  verse  ;  and  he  proceeds  to  give  a 
most  extraordinary  reason  for  so  doing.  His  meaning 
when  extracted  from  a  heap  of  words  is,  that  metre,  being 
"  something  to  which  the  mind  has  been  accustomed  in 
various  moods,"  has  "  great  efficacy"  in  mitigating  any 
excitement  of  too  strong  a  kind,  which  an  affecting  subject 
might  produce.  One  should  have  thought,  that  with  all 
the  precautions  which  Wordsworth  has  taken  to  keep  his 
writings  clear  of  all  "  gross  and  violent  stimulus,"  with 
his  choice  of  "  low  and  rustic"  subjects,  and  adherence  to 
"the  real  laneua™  of  men,"  there  could  be  no  "  danjjer 
that  the  excitement  should  be  carried  beyond  its  proper 
bounds."  However,  he  is  determined  to  make  all  sure, 
and  to  lull  his  reader's  mind  by  sweet  metrical  sounds  as 
well  as  by  the  gentle  flow  of  his  ideas. 

If  Wordsworth  bounded  himself  to  the  assertion,  that  a 
tinkling  ballad  rhyme  deducts  from  the  horror  of  a  tragical 
tale,  and  that  a  murder  sung  about  the  streets — as  how  a 
young  woman  poisoned  her  father  and  mother  all  for  love 
of  a  young  man — is  a  very  different  thing  to  a  real  sub- 
stantial newspaper  detail  of  the  same,  he  might  be  pro- 
nounced in  the  right  ;  but  when  he  asserts  that  "  Shak- 
speare's  writings  never  act  upon  us,  as  pathetic,  beyond 
the  bounds  of  pleasure,"  and  attributes  this  mainly  to 
"impulses  of  pleasurable  surprise  from  the  metrical 
arrangement,"  he  appears  to  go  rather  beyond  the  mark. 
Is  it  true,  that  Shakspearc's  writings  never  act  u])on  us, 
as  pathetic,  beyond  the  bounds  of  pleasure?  The  hysteri- 
cal shrieks  of  women,  and  the  wry  faces  of  men  trying  to 
swallow  their  tears  at  a  theatrical  representation  of  one  of 
Shakspearc's  tragedies,  will  prove  the  contrary.     Does  the 


WORDSWORTH.  227 

circLimsffinco  of  the  porformance  being  spoken  in  Idank 
verse  at  all  mitigate  its  exciting  elTect  upon  the  mind?  Is 
any  auditor  conscious  that  it  is  in  bhink  verse  at  all  ?  But 
perhai)s  VVordsworlh  will  say  that  he  is  only  s[)eaking  of 
a  perusal  of  Shakspeare.  ITso,  I  allow  that  Shakspeare's 
writings  when  read  seldom  act  upon  us,  as  pathetic, 
beyond  the  bounds  of  pleasure ;  but  this  overbalance  of 
pleasure,  I  conceive,  is  common  to  all  good  works  of  fic- 
tion, whether  in  prose  or  verse — simply  because  they  are 
works  of  fiction,  and  because  the  mind  delights  in  seeing 
nature  skilfully  imitated  or  ennobled,  whether  by  the 
poetic  art  of  Shakspeare,  or  the  imaginative  pencil  of 
Raphael.  To  see  a  kettle  (except  on  the  hob  ready  for 
tea)  imparts  no  pleasure;  to  sec  a  ghost  would  give  us  any 
thing  but  delight ;  yet  when  we  behold  a  kettle  so  well 
painted  as  to  mock  reality,  or  when  we  look  at  one  of  Fu- 
seli's  spectres,  we  are  pleased,  in  the  one  case,  to  see  the 
perfection  of  imitative  art,  in  the  other,  the  triumph  of 
imagination.  Wordsworth  a[)pcals  to  his  "  reader's  own 
experience"  as  to  whether  "  the  distressful  parts  of  Clarissa 
Harlowe"  do  not  give  more  pain  than  the  most  pathetic 
scenes  of  Shakspeare.  The  reader's  experience  may  not 
always  tally  with  Mr.  Wordsworth's.  I  for  one  confess, 
that  the  self-murder  of  Othello,  uncheered  by  one  ray  of 
comfort  here,  or  hope  hereafter,  (notwithstanding  the 
metre,)  is  more  painful  to  my  feelings  than  the  deathbed 
of  the  injured  Clarissa,  sinned  against  but  not  sinning,  and 
half  in  heaven  before  she  has  quitted  earth  ;  and  to  the 
"  rcperusal"  of  this,  I  can  safely  say,  that  I  never  came 
"with  reluctance."  But  so  far  from  metre  having  a  gene- 
ral tendency  to  "temper  and  restrain"  our  feelings — so 
far  from  the  mind  having  been  accustomed  to  it  "  in  a  less 
excited  state,"  I  conceive  that  the  very  sound  of  verse  is 
connected  in  most  minds  with  the  idea  of  something 
moving  or  elevating.  I  remember  once,  when  I  had  taken 
shelter  in  a  poor  woman's  cottage  from  a  pelting  and  per- 
severing storm,  I  began  to  read  aloud  to  a  companion  who 
was  with  me,  from  a  pocket  volume  of  Hudibras.  To  my 
surprise,  I  was  shortly  interrupted  by  the  sobs  of  the  old 
lady,  who  had  buried  her  face  in  her  apron.  I  asked  her 
what   was   the   matter.     "Oh,   sir,"   she   replied,  "them 


228  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

verses  do  sound  so  affecting !"  Moreover,  are  not  poets 
allowed  to  possess  a  greater  necromancy  in  raising  human 
passions  than  authors  in  any  other  kind;  and  do  not  poets 
usually^write  in  metre  of  some  sort? 


Having  now  considered  how  far  Wordsworth's  theory 
is  new,  and  how  far  it  is  correct,  I  propose  to  inquire  with 
what  success  he  has  illustrated  it. 

And  first,  we  may  not  unfairly  surmise  that  there  is 
something  faulty  in  his  manner  of  executing  his  purposes 
— something  "  rotten  in  the  state  of  Wordsworth" — from 
the  consideration  of  this  plain  fact,  that  writing  of  men, 
and  to  men,  he  has  never  become  a  popular  author.  It  is 
all  very  well  that  he  should  exclaim,  "  Away  with  the 
senseless  iteration  of  the  word  popular !"  and  appeal  from 
popularity  as  a  test  of  excellence,  because  it  is  his  interest 
that  popularity  should  7iot  be  a  literary  touchstone.  But 
we,  who  have  no  personal  feeling  in  the  question,  may 
observe  that,  however  it  may  be  admitted  that  poems  on 
abstract  or  abstruse  subjects  may  be  admirable  without 
being  popular,  still,  poems  professedly  founded  on  the 
grand  basis  of  human  nature,  and  depicting  her  "  great 
and  simple  affections,"  must  grow  popular  before  they  can 
be  pronounced  successful.  For  the  people  they  are  written  ; 
by  the  people  must  they  be  judged.  If  they  speak  the  "  real 
language  of  men,"  they  must  be  appreciated  wherever  that 
language  is  known.  So  far  from  coming  before  his  readers 
at  a  disadvantage,  Wordsworth  (I  maintain)  approaches 
them  under  peculiarly  favourable  circumstances.  He 
prejudices  us  in  his  favour  at  the  very  outset,  by  profess- 
ing to  "  keep  us  in  the  company  of  flesh  and  blood."  He 
appeals  to  all  our  strongest  prepossessions ;  he  awakens 
all  our  most  interesting  associations,  by  affirming  that  he 
will  choose  his  incidents  and  situations  from  ordinary  life. 
At  the  time  when  he  first  published  his  Lyrical  Ballads, 
more  especially,  such  a  doclaration  was  calculated  to 
excite    the    warmest    expectations.      The    poetry-reading 


WOEDSWORTII.  229 

multitude  began  to  sicken  from  an  overdose  of  rich  and 
stimulating  nutriment,  and  not  a  few  were  already  asking 
— "  Pray,  who  would  get  twice  drunk  upon  Noyau '?"  VV  hen 
a  man  steps  forward  with  this  spirit-stirring  motto — 
"  Homo  sum.  Nihil  liumanum  a  me  alienum  puto." 
Surely  that  man  must  have  taken  some  pains  to  undo  the 
prepossessions  naturally  excited  in  his  favour;  surely  ho 
must  have  "  kept  the  word  of  promise  to  the  ear"  only, 
"and  broken  it  to  the  hope,"  if  he  failed  to  secure  general 
sympathy  and  approbation  !  In  Ids  case,  if  in  the  case  of 
no  other  poet  whatsoever,  men  ought  to  have  "  run  after 
his  productions  as  if  urged  by  an  appetite,  or  constrained 
by  a  spell."  It  is  in  vain  for  Wordsworth  to  reply,  that 
"  every  author,  as  far  as  he  is  great,  and  at  the  same  time 
original,  has  had  the  task  of  creating  the  taste  by  which 
he  is  to  be  enjoyed."  Granting  for  a  time  that  Words- 
worth, according  to  his  own  intimation,  is  great  and  ori- 
ginal, I,  in  the  first  place,  cannot  allow  that  a  taste  for  any 
great  and  original  style  of  writing  can  possibly  be  created  ; 
it  can  only  be  called  forth,  where  it  exists.  Scarce  one 
person  in  a  thousand  has  a  real  feeling  for  real  poetry,  as 
disjoined  from  extrinsic  stimulants  of  interest,  such  as  arise 
from  an  agitating  story,  the  display  of  private  feelings  and 
circumstances,  or  from  the  caprice  of  fashion.  The  single 
person  feels,  and  decides,  and  sets  a  value  upon  any  pro- 
duction of  a  high  stamp,  and  the  accumulating  testimony 
of  these  individuals  at  length  (perhaps  not  until  many 
generations  have  past  away)  influences  the  many,  and 
they  conspire  to  read  and  to  praise  what  they  neither 
understand  nor  value,  simply  because  the  poet's  worth  has 
been  acknowledged  by  a  body  of  enlightened  men,  and 
they  dare  not  dissent  from  the  verdict,  lest  they  should  be 
supposed  to  want  taste  and  feeling.  The  author  has  taken 
his  station  amongst  those  of  an  established  rank,  and  the 
crowd  throw  incense  on  the  altar  of  his  fame,  without 
snatching  a  spark  of  its  fire.  Wordsworth  grounds 
much  of  his  argument  upon  the  facts,  that  in  Dryden's 
time  "two  of  the  plays  of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher  were 
acted  for  one  of  Shakspeare,"  and  that  Milton's  Paradise 
Lost  was  coldly  received,  and  rose  slowly  into  fame.  I 
believe  that  Shakspeare,  Milton,  or  any  other  esteemed 
VOL.  I.  20 


230  AVILso^'s  miscellaneous  avritings. 

writer,  is  not  more  enjoyed  now  than  he  was  when  his 
works  first  appeared,  but  that  the  greater  publicity  of  his 
name  places  him  within  the  reach  of  a  greater  number  of 
readers  capable  of  appreciating  him.  Those  who  never 
would  have  appreciated  him,  are  not  raised  by  his  works 
to  a  keener  faculty  of  discernment.  Those  who  can  ap- 
preciate him  have  only  to  open  his  book,  at  once  to  leap 
into  his  meaning,  and  to  partake  his  passion.  He  is  but 
conventionally  admired  by  the  many,  while  he  is  truly 
relished  by  the  few. 

But,  in  the  second  place,  Wordsworth's  pretensions  to 
greatness  and  originality  are  founded  upon  the  natural  and 
human  character  of  his  subjects  and  language.  Now,  if 
the  taste  by  which  we  relish  any  production  is  not  (as  1 
endeavoured  to  prove)  created,  but  called  forth,  the  taste 
by  which  Wordsworth's  writings  are  to  be  enjoyed  should 
be  called  forth  in  almost  every  human  breast;  because, 
how  far  soever  the  taste  may  have  strayed  from  the  pri- 
mary afTections  of  humanity,  still  the  return  to  nature  is 
always  comparatively  easy — and  it  is  back  to  nature  that 
Wordsworth  purposes  to  lead  us.  That  which  relates  to 
men  may  surely  be  understood  and  enjoyed  by  men,  at  all 
times  and  in  all  seasons.  A  relish  for  every-day  food 
demands  not  that  education  of  the  palate,  which  we  must 
undergo  before  we  can  eat  olives  with  any  enjoyment; 
and  where  there  is  so  much  nausea  to  overcome,  it  may 
be  doubted  whether  the  subsequent  pleasure  is  worth  the 
previous  pain.  I  was  told,  that  if  I  could  but  once  swallow 
one  of  that  unnatural  fruit,  I  should  like  the  whole  tribe 
ever  after.  I  swallowed  three,  and  hate  them  still.  But 
how  can  Wordsworth  reconcile  his  assertion,  that  every 
great  and  original  author  creates  the  taste  by  which  he  is 
enjoyed,  with  another  explicit  declaration  of  his,  which 
runs  thus? — "The  poet  writes  under  one  restriction  only, 
namely,  that  of  the  necessity  of  giving  imviediate  pleasure 
to  a  human  being,  possessed  of  that  information  which  may 
be  expected  of  him,  not  as  a  lawyer,  a  physician,  a  mari- 
ner, an  astronomer,  or  a  natural  philosopher,  but  as  a 
man  ;"  and  he  goes  on  to  say,  "  Nor  lot  this  necessity  of 
producing  immediate  pleasure  be  considered  as  a  degra- 
dation of  the  poet's  art.     It  is  far  otherwise.     It  is  an 


WORDSWORTH.  231 

aGknowledgmcnt  of  the  beauty  of  Iho  universe — an  ac- 
knowledgment the  more  sincere,  because  it  is  not  formal, 
but  indirect."  This  being  the  case,  surely  the  poet  of 
nature  more  especially  must  be  under  the  necessity  of 
giving  immediate  pleasure  to  those  who  share  the  feelings 
of  men  ?  And  facts  will  bear  me  out  in  the  assertion, 
that  he  actually  does  impart  that  immediate  pleasure  to  a 
far  wider  circle  of  readers  than  the  poet  who  has  chosen 
lofty  and  abstracted  themes  of  argument.  As  I  once  be- 
fore observed,  the  simplest  ballads,  detailing  the  commonest 
incidents,  have  been  most  inwoven  with  the  hearts  of  men, 
and  have  been  laid  up  in  the  memories  of  all,  while  Milton 
has  been  quietly  laid  on  the  shelf.  And  why?  Because 
neither  science  nor  learning,  nor  even  high  poetical  feel- 
ing, is  required  for  the  comprehension  of  them.  To  be  a 
human  being  is  the  sole  qualification.  The  very  lowest  of 
the  vulgar  are  not  bad  judges  of  what  is  true  to  nature.  I 
have  observed,  that  the  galleries  in  a  theatre  know  how 
to  mark,  by  discriminating  applause,  the  finest  natural 
touches  of  Shakspeare's  genius.  Moliere  constituted  an 
old  woman  his  judge,  and  her  laughter  or  tears  his  criti- 
cism. Why  did  Cowper,  by  means  of  his  "  Task,"  and 
Burns,  through  his  ballads,  find  an  immediate  echo  in 
every  human  bosom?  They  wrote  of  things  pertaining  to 
humanity  in  a  human  manner.  If  Wordsworth  has  failed 
in  producing  a  similar  efiect,  it  may  lead  us  to  surmise 
that,  although  purporting  to  write  of  human  things,  he 
has  not  generally  written  in  a  human  or  natural  manner. 
The  popularity  of  some  of  his  smaller  and  simpler  poems, 
such  as  "  We  are  Seven,"  "Susan  Gray,"  and  the  "  Pet 
Lamb,"  strengthens  the  conjecture,  and  forms  an  additional 
proof,  that  to  write  naturally  on  common  subjects  rather 
insures,  than  forbids,  a  numerous  audience. 

Why,  then,  should  Wordsworth  tell  us,  that  he  "  was 
well  aware"  that  his  poems,  by  those  who  should  dislike 
them,  would  be  read  with  more  than  common  dislike? 
Why  did  he  not  "  venture  to  hope"  that  he  should  gene- 
rally please? 

I  answer,  because  he  had  a  lurking  consciousness  that 
he  had  not  fulfilled  the  terms  of  his  own  covenant,  the  con- 
ditions imposed  by  his  own  theory.     lie  had  always  sung. 


232  Wilson's  miscellaneous  avritings. 

"  Familiar  matter  of  to-day, 
Some  natural  sorrow,  loss,  or  pain, 
That  has  been,  and  may  be  again," 

in  simple  and  natural  language,  he  might  have  been  secure 
of  imparting  more  than  common  pleasure  to  all  who  had 
hearts  to  feel  or  minds  to  think.  As  it  is,  he  has  frequently 
failed  in  his  object  by  not  faithfully  adhering  to  the  best 
parts  of  his  theory  ;  and,  by  embodying  the  worst  parts 
of  it,  he  has  rendered  himself  liable  to  the  charge  of  gla- 
ring inconsistency.  These  two  points  I  purpose  to  make 
clear  by  quotations  from  his  own  works. 

First,  he  has  not  adhered  to  the  best  parts  of  his  theory. 
That  "  a  selection  of  the  real  language  of  men,  in  a  state 
of  vivid  sensation,"  may  produce  a  most  happy  effect, 
when  transferred  to  the  poet's  page,  I  have  beibre  proved 
by  a  reference  to  Shakspeare's  frequent  practice  in  his 
most  impassioned  dialogues. — But,  1st,  The  language  of 
Wordsworth's  characters  scarcely  ever  w  the  real  language 
of  men  ;  and,  2d,  When  it  is  so,  cannot  be  called  a  fortu- 
nate selection  of  human  speech.  1st,  Notwithstanding  our 
author's  inveighing  so  bitterly  against  poetic  diction,  it  is 
actually  by  a  mixture  of  poetic  diction  with  humble  phrase- 
ology, and  by  the  use  of  what  are  called  poetic  licenses, 
conjointly  with  common  modes  of  expression,  that  he  has 
produced  a  patched  and  piebald  dialect,  infinitely  more 
monstrous  than  either  "  the  gaudy  and  inane  phraseology" 
of  which  he  complains  in  one  place,  or  "  the  triviality  and 
meanness,  both  of  thought  and  language,"  which  elsewhere 
he  acknowledges  to  be  "  more  dishonourable  to  the  writer's 
own  character,  than  false  refinement  or  arbitrary  innova- 
tion." 

They  who  solely  use  poetic  diction,  on  the  one  hand, 
and  they  who  confine  themselves  to  trivial  language,  on 
the  other,  shall  each  produce  a  work  which,  at  least,  is  all 
of  a  piece — it  may  be,  indeed,  all  of  tinsel,  or  all  of  can- 
vass— but  is  not  this  preferable  to  embroidery  upon  pack- 
thread ?  There  is  in  Wordsworth  a  natural  grandiloquence 
of  style  always  struggling  through  the  I'alse  restraints 
which  he  has  imposed  upon  himself.     Even  a  wagon  must 


WORDSWORTH.  233 

be  dignified  with  the  epithet  of  "  stately;"  and,  in  a  soli- 
loquy of  mild  Benjamin,  the  vvagonner,  we  t^nd — 

"  My  jolly  team,  he  finds  that  ye 
Will  work  for  nobody  but  me  ! 
Good  proof  of  this  the  country  gain'd 
One  day,  when  ye  were  vex'd  and  strain'd — 
r^ntrusted  to  another's  care, 
And  forced  unworthy  stripes  to  hear. 
Here  was  it — on  this  rugged  spot, 
Which  now,  contented  with  our  lot, 
We  climb — that,  pitcously  abused, 
Ye  plunged  in  anger,  and  confused: 
As  chance  would  have  it,  passing  by, 
I  saw  you  in  your  jeopardy  : 
A  word  from  me  was  like  a  charm — 
The  ranks  were  taken  loilh  one  mind ; 
And  your  huge  burthen,  safe  from  harm, 
Moved  like  a  vessel  in  the  wind .'" 

The  words  which  are  printed  in  italics  are  as  much  poetic 
diction,  though  of  a  diflerent  kind,  as  that  of  the  lines  of 
Gray,  which  Wordsworth  stigmatized  as  such,  without  one 
of  its  advantages. — "Good  proof  of  this,"  with  the  article 
omitted,  is  a  poetic  license ;  and  the  whole  speech,  as  pro- 
ceeding from  the  mouth  of  a  wagonner,  is  a  tissue  of  in- 
congruity. Again,  in  the  Idiot  Boy,  Betty,  conjecturing 
the  probable  fate  of  her  stray  darling,  thus  expresses  her- 
self— 

"  Or  him  that  wicked  pony's  carried 
To  the  dark  cave,  the  goblin's  hall; 
Or  in  the  castle,  he's  pursuing. 
Among  the  ghosts,  his  own  undoing  ; 
Or  playing  with  the  waterfall." 

Thus  also  she  apostrophizes  the  absent  pony — 

"  Oh  dear,  dear  pony,  my  sweet  joy, 
Oh  carry  back  my  idiot  boy, 

And  we  will  ne'er  overload  thee  more  !" 

And  thus  she  bewails  her  own  sad  case — 

"  Oh  cruel !  I'm  almost  three-score, 
Such  night  as  this  was  ne'er  before .'" 
20* 


234  Wilson's  jiiscellaneous  writings. 

Here  are  poetical  contractions,  and  that  very  modern  vice 
of  diction,  the  omission  of  the  article  before  a  noun,  in  con- 
junction with  what  might  be  the  lack-a-daisical  exclama- 
tions of  an  old  Irish  woman.  Peter  Bell,  storming  at  an 
ass,  which  will  not  get  up,  says — 

"  You  little  mulish  dog, 
I'll  fling  your  carcass,  like  a  log. 
Head- foremost  down  the  river  !" 

Here  the  words  are  so  evidently  arranged  for  the  sake  of 
rhyme,  as  to  destroy  all  feeling  of  reality,  and  as  a  ver- 
sion of  "Get  up,  you  obstinate  brute,  or  I'll  chuck  you 
into  the  water,"  they  have  this  great  fault,  namely,  that 
they  are  not  coarse  enough  for  nature,  or  pleasing  enough 
for  art.  They  are  neither  fish,  fowl,  flesh,  nor  good  red 
herring.  If  this  be  the  real  language  of  human  beings  in 
a  state  of  vivid  sensation,  or  in  any  state  of  sensation,  the 
poet  must  have  conversed  with  a  singular  race  of  mortals. 
There  is,  to  my  mind,  a  want  of  skill  in  the  writer,  who 
thus,  even  while  using  common  language,  fails  to  work  in 
the  reader's  mind  a  conviction  that  such  words  were  really 
uttered  under  such  circumstances.  Little  imbued  as  the 
foregoing  extracts  are  with  that  imaginative  spirit,  which 
ought  to  beautify  the  most  revolting  themes  of  a  true  poet, 
they  yet  are  farther  from  real  life  than  the  most  fanciful 
expressions  which  Shakspeare  puts  into  the  mouths  of  his 
characters.  By  the  assimilating  power  of  his  mighty 
mind,  that  wondrous  dramatist  subdues  all  his  materials  to 
his  own  purposes.  He  scatters  the  gems  of  imagination, 
the  treasures  of  philosophy,  from  the  mouths  of  clowns 
and  buffoons.  His  characters  have  all  an  individual  stamp 
upon  them  :  their  words  seem  appropriate  to  themselves, 
and  flow  with  ease  from  nature's  living  fountain — yet  the 
poet  speaks  in  all.  Although  we  never  met  with  beings 
who  so  speak,  yet  we  feel  convinced  that  such  beings  could 
not  have  spoken  otherwise.  Wordsworth  uses  more  of  the 
real  language  of  men,  and  produces  a  less  real  effect. 
Surely  there  is  want  of  skill  or  power  in  this.  I  must 
observe,  to  prevent  misapprehension,  that  I  should  not  do 
Wordsworth  the  injustice  to  name  him  in  the  same  page 
with  Shakspeare,  did    not  Wordsworth's  admirers  claim 


WOKDSWORTII.  235 

for  him  a  niche  beside  that  matchless  bard — and  did  not 
Wordsworth  himself  seem  to  provoke  a  comparison  which 
had  best  have  slumbered.  After  remarking,  "  of  the  human 
and  dramatic  imagination,  the  works  of  Shakspearc  are 
an  inexhaustible  source,"  Wordsworth  says,  "  And  if, 
bearing  in  mind  the  many  poets  distinguished  by  this 
prime  quality,  whose  names  I  omit  to  mention,  yet,  justi- 
fied by  a  recollection  of  the  insults  which  the  ignorant,  the 
incapable,  and  the  presumptuous  have  heaped  upon  these 
and  my  other  writings,  I  may  be  permitted  to  anticipate 
the  judgment  of  posterity  upon  myself;  I  shall  declare 
(censurable,  I  grant,  if  the  notoriety  of  the  fact  above 
stated  docs  not  justify  me)  that  I  have  given,  in  those  un- 
favourable times,  evidence  of  exertion  of  this  faculty,  upon 
its  worthiest  objects,  the  external  universe,  the  moi'al  and 
religious  sentiments  of  man,  his  natural  affections,  and 
his  acquired  passions,  which  have  the  same  ennobling  ten- 
dency as  the  productions  of  men,  in  this  kind,  worthy  to 
be  held  in  undying  remembrance"    (See  Preface  to  vol.  i.) 

It  may  be  doubted  whether  the  ill-conduct  of  others  can 
justify  weakness  in  oneself,  or  whether  the  assertion  of  one 
man,  and  that  man  the  party  nearest  concerned,  is  at  all 
better  than  the  assertion  of  another;  but,  at  any  rate,  I  hope 
that,  however  "  ignorant,  incapable,  and  presumptuous," 
I  may  be  esteemed,  /am  justified  in  having  instituted  a 
sort  of  parallel  between  Shakspeare  and  Wordsworth. 

Not  only  when  lie  speaks  in  character,  but  in  his  own 
person  also,  when  he  relates  or  describes,  Wordsworth 
professes  to  use  '■'■  tlirougliout,  as  "far  as  is  possible,  a 
selection  of  language  really  used  by  men."  I  could  quote 
boundlessly  from  his  works,  to  prove  that  neither  in 
relating  nor  describing  has  Wordsworth  attained  his  ob- 
ject ;  but,  as  in  a  multitude  of  quotations,  there  is  weari- 
ness, I  will  confine  myself  to  two  or  three  extracts.  First, 
take,  as  a  general  specimen,  an  adventure  with  some 
gipsies. 

"  Twelve  hours,  twelve  bounteous  hours,  are  gone,  while  I 
Have  been  a  traveller  under  open  sky, 
Much  witnessing-  of  change  and  cheer, 
Yet,  as  I  letl,  T  tind  tJicni  here ! 

[Unheard-of  circumstance !] 


236  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

The  weary  sun  betook  iiimself  to  rest — 
Then  issued  vesper  from  tlie  fulgent  west, 
Outsliining,  like  a  visible  God, 
The  glorious  path  in  which  he  trode. 
And  now,  ascending,  after  one  dark  hour, 
And  one  night's  diminution  of  her  power, 
Behold  the  mighty  moon  !     This  way 
She  looks  as  if  at  them  !  ! — but  they 
Regard  not  her  ! ! !     Oh  better  wrong  and  strife 
(By  nature  transient)  than  such  torpid  life ! 
The  silent  heavens  have  goings-on : 
The  stars  have  tasks — but  these  have  none! 
Yet,  witness  all  that  stirs  in  heaven  and  earth! 
In  scorn  I  speak  not ;  they  are  what  their  birth 
And  breeding  suffers  them  to  be; 
Wild  outcasts  of  society  !" 

"  O  lame  and  impotent  conclusion  !"  Surely  the  man 
who  criticises  the  following  stanza  from  Cowper's  Alex- 
ander Selkirk, 

"  Religion  !  whut  treasure  untold, 
Resides  in  that  heavenly  word  ! 
More  precious  than  silver  and  gold, 
Or  all  that  this  earth  can  afibrd  !" 

in  the  following  severe  terms — "  These  four  lines  are 
poorly  expressed ;  some  critics  would  call  the  language 
prosaic;  the  fact  is,  it  would  be  bad  prose,  so  bad,  that  it 
is  scarcely  worse  in  metre !" — Surely  that  critic,  when 
he  turns  poet,  should  give  us  something  a  little  better 
expressed  than  the  last  ibur  lines  of  the  foregoing  extract 
— I  dare  say  that,  all  the  time,  these  said  gipsies  had  their 
goings-on  as  well  as  the  stars.  They  might,  during  the 
"  twelve  bounteous  hours,"  have  had  a  little  walk  as  well 
as  the  poet,  and  had  time  to  rob  his  own  hen-roost  and  be 
back  again,  and  be  so  busy  mending  the  pot  and  kettle, 
as  to  have  no  time  to  look  at  the  moon.  Hear  a  piece  of 
description  : 

"  She  had  a  tall  man's  height,  or  more; 
No  bonnet  screen'd  her  from  the  heat; 
A  long  drab-colour'd  cloak  she  wore, 
A  mantle  reaching  to  her  feet; 
What  other  dress  she  had  I  could  not  know, 

[How  could  he  ?] 

Only  she  wore  a  cap  that  was  as  white  as  snow." 


WORDSWORTH.  237 

On  reading  this  one  may  truly  say, 

"  A  needless  Alexandrine  ends  the  song', 
That,  like  a  wounded  snake,  drags  its  slow  length  along." 

In  the  last  line,  the  words  "  tliat  ivas'''  are  plainly  redun- 
dant, and  are  used  to  complete  the  measure.  To  "  Itave 
a  tall  man's  height"  is  surely  out  of  all  common  parlance 
— and  "  No  bonnet  screened  her  from  the  heat" — may 
not  indeed  be  poetry,  but — certainly  is  not  ordinary  prose. 
Listen  again  to  the  poet's  mode  of  relation — 

"  And  Betty  from  the  lane  has  fetch'd 

Her  pony,  that  is  mild  and  good. 

Whether  he  be  in  joy,  or  pain. 

Feeding  at  will  along-  the  lane. 

Or  bringing  fagots  from  the  wood." 

Or  hearken,  when  the  poet  speaks  in  his  own  person — 

"  I  to  the  Muses  have  been  bound 
These  fourteen  years,  by  strong-  indentures: 
Oh,  gentle  Muses,  let  me  tell 
But  half  of  what  to  him  befell — 

He  surely  met  with  strange  adventures, 
O,  gentle  Muses!  is  this  kind? 

Why  will  ye  thus  my  suit  repel  ] 

Why  of  your  further  aid  bereave  me? 

And  can  ye  thus  unfriended  leave  me, 
Ye  Muses,  whom  I  love  so  well  ]" 

The  Muses  certainly  seem  neither  to  have  smiled  upon 
this  importunate  invocation,  nor  to  have  dictated  it ;  and 
yet,  can  we  say  that  this  is  the  real  language  of  men — 
more  especially  of  men  "  in  low  and  rustic  life  ?"  But  it 
may  be  answered,  that  Wordsworth  only  professes  to  use 
"  the  real  language  of  men,  as  far  as  is  'possible^''  I 
answer,  "  what  man  has  done,  man  may  do  ;  and  some  of 
our  pathetic  ballads  demonstrate  that  it  is  possible  to  make 
use  of  the  most  real  and  simple  language  tlirouglioiit  a 
composition,  and  with  the  happiest  efiect.  Witness  the 
touching  ballad  of  Auld  Robin  Gray. 

"  He  hadna  been  ganc  but  a  year  and  a  day. 
When  my  faitbcr  broke  his  aru),  and  our  cow  was  stolen 
away ; 


238  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

j\Iy  milher  she  fell  sick,  and  my  Jamie  at  the  sea, 
And  auld  Robin  Gray  came  courtin'  to  me. 

"  My  faither  uro-cd  me  sair,  my  mither  didna  speak, 
But  siie  looked  in  my  face  til!  my  heart  was  like  to  break ; 
So  1  gicd  him  my  hand,  though  my  heart  was  at  the  sea, 
And  auld  Robin  Gray  is  gudeman  to  me." 

Here  there  is  not  a  iconl  that  is  unusual  either  in  itself  or 
in  the  application  of  it;  a,nd  the  result  is  a  general  har- 
mony and  keejnng  in  the  composition.  But  Wordsworth, 
in  exemplifying  his  theory,  is  too  frequently  neither  simple 
nor  majestic.  He  misses  the  grace  of  simplicity,  and  at 
the  same  time  loses  the  advantages  of  a  loftier  diction. 
Who  can  prefer  these  lines  on  a  sky-lark, 

"  Up  with  me,  up  with  me  into  the  clouds ! 
For  thy  song,  lark,  is  strong ; 
Up  with  me,  up  with  me  into  the  clouds, 

Singing,  singing. 
With  all  the  heavens  about  thee  ringing," 

to  the  following,  by  Gray,  on  the  same  subject, 

"  But  chief  the  sky-lark  pours  on  high 
Her  trembling,  thrilling  ecstasy. 
And,  lessening  from  the  dazzled  sight, 
Melts  into  air  and  liquid  light." 

These  last  may,  indeed,  chiefly  consist  of  that  diction 
which  Wordsworth  brands  by  the  epithet  "poetic;"  but, 
at  any  rate,  they  have  the  grace  of  congruity.  Now, 
Wordsworth's  lines  are  too  eccentric  to  be  natural — too 
much  like  the  old  nursery  ditty  of  "  Here  we  go  up,  up, 
up,"  to  be  sublime. 

Wordsworth  may  well  say,  "  If  my  conclusions  are 
admitted,  and  carried  as  far  as  they  must  be  carried — if 
admitted  at  all — our  judgments  concerning  the  works  of 
the  greatest  poets,  both  ancient  and  modern,  will  be  far 
different  from  what  they  are  at  present,  both  when  we 
praise  and  when  we  censure ;  but  it  may  be  doubted 
whether  (as  he  affirms)  our  "  moral  feelings,  influencing, 
and  influenced  by  these  judgments,  will  be  corrected  and 
purified." 

At  any  rate,  our  tastes  will   hardly  be  corrected  and 


woRDSwoiiTir.  239 

purified,  for,  if  we  judge  by  the  theory  and  its  cfTccts,  we 
must  bring  in  a  verdict  of  "  guihy"  against  Milton,  on  an 
indictment  of  having  used  poetic  diction;  and  we  must 
place  the  author  of  the  "  Lyrical  Ballads"  infinitely  above 
that  mighty  "  orb  of  song." 

In  the  second  place,  where  Wordsworth  has  made  use 
of  the  real  language  of  men,  he  has  not  been  fortunate  in 
the  selection.  His  language  of  low  life  is  not,  as  he  tells 
us  it  is,  "  purified  from  what  appears  to  be  its  real  defects, 
from  all  lasting  and  rational  causes  of  dislike  or  disgust." 
He  does  not,  according  to  his  profession,  "  by  a  selection 
made  with  true  taste  and  feeling,"  entirely  separate  the 
composition  from  the  vulgarity  and  meanness  of  ordinary 
life."     Will  he  affirm  that  such  expressions  as  these, 

"  Let  Betty  Foy, 
With  girth  and  stirrup,  fiddle,  fuddle" — 

"  Oh,  me !  it  is  a  merry  meeting," — 

"  And  Betty's  in  a  sad  quandary," 

are  not  "rational  causes  of  dislike  or  disgust?"  Will 
he  maintain  that  such  "  selections"  of  language  as  the 
following, — 

"  If  thou  art  mad,  my  pretty  lad, 
Then  I  must  be  for  ever  sad;" 

"  Oh,  mercy  !  to  myselfl  cried. 
If  Lucy  siionld  be  dead  !" 

"  Oh,  misery,  oh,  misery  ! 
Oh,  wo  is  me,  oh,  misery  !" 

are  "made  with  true  taste  and  feeling,"  or  that  they 
"entirely  separate  the  composition  from  the  vulgarity  and 
meanness  of  ordinary  life?"  Let  it  be  observed,  more- 
over, that  in  all  the  above  extracts,  the  poet  speaks  in  his 
own  person,  and  cannot — as  I  at  least  should  hope — |)Iead 
in  excuse  for  vulgarity  of  diction,  that  he  has  adapted  the 
words  to  the  character  from  whose  mouth  they  proceed. 

Amongst  other  causes  of  pleasure,  when  words  are  me- 
trically arranged,  Wordsworth  mentions  a  "  manly  style," 
and  yet  descends  to  such  babyisms  as 


240  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

"  That  way,  look,  my  infant,  lo  ! 
What  a  pretty  baby-show  !" 

•'  'Tis  a  pretty  baby-treat, 
Nor,  1  deem,  for  me,  unmeet." 

"  Pull  the  primrose,  sister  Anne, 
Pull  as  man}^  as  you  can  !" 

"Eyes  of  some  men  travel  far 
For  the  finding-  of  a  star  ; 
Up  and  down  the  heavens  they  go, 
Men  that  keep  a  mighty  rout ! 
Pm  as  great  as  they,  I  trow. 
Since  the  day  1  found  thee  out. 
Little  flower  ! — PU  make  a  stir, 
Like  a  great  astronomer." 

But,  it  may  be  urged,  that  the  poems  from  which  these  ex- 
tracts are  made,  have  "«  loorthy  iwrpose.''''  It  may  be  so. 
All  I  allege  is, thatof  whatever  "  importance"  their  "subject" 
maybe,  "  their  style"  is  not  "manly" — their  selection  of  lan- 
guaire  is  not "  made  with  true  taste  and  feeling."  The  mind 
of  him  who  reads  them  may  (as  I  contend)  be  "  sound  and 
vigorous,"  and  "  in  a  liedlihfnl  state  of  association,"  (as 
Wordsworth  calls  it,)  and  yet  fail  to  be  "  enlightened,"  or 
"  ameliorated,"  by  reason  of  the  "  rationaV  disgust,  which, 
in  its  days  of  manhood,  it  feels  to  the  pap  which  was  the 
nutriment  of  its  infancy.  It  hath  put  away  childish  things  ; 
it  no  longer  speaks  as  a  child,  understands  as  a  child,  or 
thinks  as  a  child.  Why,  then,  in  poems  which  are  so  far 
from  being  written  professedly  for  children,  that  they  are 
rather  illustrations  of  a  complicated  theory  addressed  to 
the  mature  intellect,  should  the  poet  make  use  of  language 
which,  in  the  outset,  carries  with  it  childish  associations? 
Wordsworth  indeed,  confesses  that  he  is  apprehensive  that 
his  language  "  may  frequently  suffer  from  arbitrary  con- 
nexions of  feelings  and  ideas  with  particular  words  and 
phrases;"  and  he  has  "  no  doubt,  that  in  some  instances, 
feelings,  even  of  the  ludicrous,  may  be  given  to  his  readers, 
by  expressions  which  appeared  to  him  tender  and  pathetic." 
— "  That  no  man  can  altogctJier  protect  himself"  from  the 
effects  of  these  associations,  I  allow  ;  but  that  he  may  pro- 


WORDSWORTH.  241 

tect  himself  from  them  more  than  Wordsworth  has  done, 
I  must  believe. 

The  very  measure  of  such  verses  as  these — 

"  The  cock  is  crowing, 
The  stream  is  flowing  ; 
The  small  birds  twitter, 
The  lake  doth  glitter ;" 

and, 

"  Like  an  army  defeated 
The  snow  hath  retreated, 
And  now  doth  fare  ill 
On  the  top  of  the  bare  hill," 

brings  the  nursery  before  us,  and  almost  prevents  us  from 
observing  that  the  tkoiigJits  are  really  pleasing,  and  sug- 
gested by  a  personal  observation  of  nature.  Is  not  this 
rather  like  a  daring  of  the  very  danger  which  he  depre- 
cates ?  1  am  far  from  calling  Wordsworth  a  childish 
writer  ;  but  it  must  be  owned  that  he  sometimes  writes 
childishly. 

Having  attempted  to  show  that,  in  many  instances, 
Wordsworth  has  not  fulfilled  the  conditions  of  his  own 
theory,!  proceed  to  point  out  in  what  manner,  by  fulfilling 
them,  he  has  been  betrayed  into  absurdities. 

The  very  root  of  W'ordsworth's  most  offensive  pecu- 
liarities seems  to  be  the  principle,  into  which,  at  the  begin- 
ning of  my  observations,  I  promised  to  institute  an  inquiry 
at  some  future  time.  It  is  this,  "  that  the  feeling  deve- 
loped in  his  poems  gives  importance  to  the  action  and  situa- 
tion, and  not  the  action  and  situation  to  the  feeling."  I 
proposed  to  consider  whether  this  part  of  his  theory  were 
not  likely  to  produce  originality  of  a  vicious  kind,  and 
whether  there  should  not  be  a  mutual  proportion  between 
the  subject  and  the  passion  connected  with  it. 

As  we  shall  best  judge  of  this  principle  when  viewed  in 
connexion  with  its  results,  let  us  examine  in  what  manner 
it  has  operated  on  Wordsworth's  poetry,  and  whether  it 
have  there  produced  originality  of  a  good  or  a  bad  kind. 

I  shall  endeavour  to  prove,  that  by  carrying  this  prin- 
ciple into  effect,  Wordsworth  has  been  betrayed  into  two 

VOL.  I.  21 


242  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

faults,  which  branch  off  into  ahnost  opposite  ramifications, 
but  which  unite  at  last  in  producing  one  common  result — 
incongruity. 

The  first  is,  that  trusting  to  the  importance  of  the  feel- 
ing, which  he  purposes  to  illustrate,  he  does  not  scruple  to 
consort  it  with  weak  and  beggarly  elements,  which  either 
degrade  it  or  render  it  ridiculous,  by  the  overpowering 
force  of  association. 

The  second  is,  that,  investing  the  feeling  with  an  import- 
ance which  the  action  and  situation  do  not  warrant,  he 
uses  language  and  employs  ilhistrations,  as  much  above 
the  occasion,  as  the  language  he  sometimes  uses  is  below 
it  ;  and  thus  produces  in  his  poems  as  strange  a  mixture 
of  homeliness  and  magnificence,  as  the  brick  floor  and 
mirrored  walls  of  a  French  bedroom. 

Or,  in  more  concise  terms,  he  has,  in  the  first  case, 
derived  low  subjects  from  lofiy  feelings ;  in  the  second,  he 
has  deduced  lofty  feelings  from  low  subjects. 

I  will,  in  the  first  place,  attempt  to  render  the  first  error 
palpable. 

In  ]iursuance  of  his  principal  object,  which  is  (the  poet 
tells  us)  "  further  and  above  all,  to  make  his  incidents  and 
situation  (chosen  from  common  life)  interesting,  by  tracing 
in  them,  truly  though  not  ostentatiously,  the  primary  laws 
of  our  nature,  chiefly  as  far  as  regards  the  manner  in 
which  we  associate  ideas  in  a  slate  of  excitement,"  (let  me 
take  breath  !)  or,  (as  he  says  in  another  place,)  "  speaking 
in  language  more  appropriate,  to  follow  the  fluxes  and 
refluxes  of  the  mind,  when  agitated  by  the  great  and 
simple  affections  of  our  nature,"  Wordsworth,  amongst 
other  poems,  wrote  the  Idiot  Boy,  wherein  he  "  traces  the 
maternal  passion  through  many  of  its  more  subtle  wind- 
ings." It  is  really  curious  to  contrast  the  pompous  an- 
nouncement of  the  poet's  intentions,  with  the  poverty  of 
their  execution.  "  Low  ivords  contending  with  his  lofty 
will,  till  his  mortality  predominates."  Here  are  high- 
sounding  and  philosophical  sentences,  incomprehensible 
enough  to  make  the  greatest  fool  I  ever  knew  in  my  life 
exclaim, — "  How  delightfid  that  is  ! — It  is  so  metaphj^si- 
cal  !"  Any  one  would  naturally  imagine  that  the  "  fluxes 
and  refluxes  of  the  mind,  when  agitated  by  the  great  and 


WORDSWORTH.  243 

simple  affections  of  our  nature," — "  the  maternal  passion 
traced  througli  many  of  its  more  subtle  windings,"  must 
be  illustrated  by  a  poem,  great  in  its  scheme,  simple  in  its 
execution,  affecting  in  its  incidents,  ^^'e  turn  to  the  poem 
in  question  with  raised  expectations,  when  we  experience 
the  shock  of  a  shower-bath  in  the  perusal  of  a  story,  (very 
simple^  in  one  sense  of  the  word,)  all  about  an  old  woman, 
one  Betty  Foy,  whose  neighbour,  Susan  Gale,  "  old  Susan, 
she  who  dwells  alone,"  is  taken  ill.  Betty  Foy,  instead  of 
going  for  the  doctor  herself,  wisely  sends  her  idiot  boy 
Johnny  on  horseback  on  that  errand,  although  (as  she  might 
have  anticipated,  had  she  possessed  a  grain  of  sense)  she  is 
obliged  at  last  to  leave  Susan  (her  reluctance  to  do  which 
caused  her  to  send  Johnny,)  and  to  walk  in  propria  per- 
sond  to  the  town,  roaming  the  livelong  night  in  quest  of 
her  idiotic  darling.  After  a  little  attempt  to  keep  the 
reader  in  suspense  as  to  Johnny's  fate,  the  poet  cannot  find 
in  his  heart  to  be  too  pathetic ;  he  therefore  soon  discovers 
Johnny  quietly  sitting  on  the  pony,  "  who  is  mild  and 
good,"  and  comforts  Betty's  heart  with  so  enchanting  a 
sight. 

"  She  pats  the  pony,  where  or  when 
She  knows  not — happy  Betty  Foy  ! 

The  little  pony  glad  may  be, 

But  he  is  milder  far  than  she, 
You  hardly  can  perceive  /us  joy." 

That  is,  the  fluxes  and  the  refluxes  of  the  pony's  feelings 
(apparently  the  wisest  animal  of  the  party)  were  less  vio- 
lent than  those  of  Betty.  Indeed  hers  seem  to  have 
gushed  forth  with  great  vehemence ;  for,  when  she  first 
beholds  Johnny, 

"  She  darts  as  with  a  torrent's  force, 
She  almost  has  o'erturn'd  the  horse." 

But  that  nothing  may  be  wanting  to  a  happy  denoue- 
ment, old  Susan  Gale  gets  up,  and  finds  that  her  com- 
plaint was  wholly  nervous,  and  produced  by  the  want  of 
something  better  to  think  of.  She  then  posts  to  the  wood, 
and  finds  her  friends — 


244  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

"  Oh  me  !  it  is  a  merry  meeting, 
As  ever  was  in  Christendom." 

They  all  go  honfie ;  and  the  reader's  heart,  which  had 
been  so  painfully  agitated,  is  cheered  by  the  following  fa- 
cetious conclusion  : 

"  And  thus  to  Betty's  question  he 

Made  answer  like  a  traveller  bold  : 
{His  very  tvords  I  give  to  you.) 
'  The  cocks  did  crow  tu-whoo — tu-whoo, 

And  the  sun  did  shine  so  cold  !' 
Thus  answer'd  Johnny  in  his  glory, 
And  that  was  all  his  travel's  story." 

But  it  may  be  objected  that  I  have  only  given  the  story, 
which  is  the  mere  vehicle  of  the  feeling.  I  will,  therefore, 
more  accurately  trace  the  "  fluxes  and  refluxes"  of  Betty's 
maternal  passion.  First  we  find  her  anxiety  that  Johnny 
should  comport  himself  like  a  man  of  sense; 

"  And  Betty's  most  especial  charge 

Was,  Johnny  !  Johnny  !  mind  that  you 

Come  home  again,  nor  stop  at  all, — 

Come  home  again,  whate'er  befall. 
My  Johnny  do,  I  pray  you  do." 

Then  comes  a  flux  o^  joy  at  seeing  Johnny  make  such  a 
good  figure  on  horseback — 

"  His  heart  it  was  so  full  of  glee 

That,  till  full  fifty  yards  were  gone. 
He  quite  forgot  his  holly  whip, 
And  all  his  skill  in  horsemansliip — 
Oh  happy,  happy,  happy,  John  /" 

"  And  Betty's  standing  at  the  door, 

And  Betty's  face  with  joy  o'erflows, 
Proud  of  herself  and  proud  ofliim. 
She  sees  him  in  his  travelling  trim; 
How  quietly  her  Johnny  goes!" 

Then  comes  a  sad  reflux  of  apprehension,  from  .Johnny's 
protracted  absence,  which  shows  itself,  first  in  "  a  subtle 


woRDSWORxn.  245 

winding,"  which  induces  her  to  cast  vile  reflections  on 
Johnny,  and  to  call  him  "  a  little  idle  sauntering  thing" — 
then  in  a  tender  regard  for  his  safety — and,  finally,  in 
quitting  "  poor  old  Susan  Gale,"  to  look  for  her  idiot  boy. 
This  time  the  tide  of  her  feelings  is  quite  at  a  spring-ebb, 
and  she  has  serious  thoughts  of  becoming  a  second 
Ophelia : 

"  A  green-grown  pond  she  just  has  past, 
And  from  the  brink  she  hurries  fast, 
Lest  she  should  drown  herself  therein." 

For  nothing  can  she  see  or  hear;  and  the  night  is  so  still, 

"  The  grass  you  almost  hear  it  growing — 
You  hear  it  noto  if  e'er  you  cany 

Then,  with  a  sort  of  eddy  in  the  reflux  of  her  passions,  she 
indulges  in  conjectures  as  to  Johnny's  fate,  to  which  con- 
jectures the  bard  adds  a  few  of  his  own,  as  thus — 

"  Perhaps  with  head  and  heels  on  fire, 

And  like  the  very  soul  of  evil, 
He's  galloping  away,  away  ! 
And  so  he'll  gallop  on  for  aye, 

The  bane  of  all  that  dread  the  devil !" 

But, 

"  Your  pony's  worth  his  weight  in  gold; 
Then  calm  your  terrors,  Betty  Foy  ! 
She's  coming  from  among  the  trees. 
And  now  all  full  in  view  she  sees 
Him  whom  she  loves,  her  idiot  boy." 

Then  does  the  tide  flow  in  again  up  to  high-water  mark, 
and  Betty  manifests  her  raptures,  (as  before  mentioned,) 
by  nearly  upsetting  the  pony.  No  wonder  that  Words- 
worth should  write  in  metre,  (and  such  metre  !)  lest  the 
excitement  produced  by  his  pathetic  histories  should  be 
carried  beyond  its  proper  bounds  ! 

Wordsworth  says,  in  speaking  of  his  Lyrical  Ballads, 
"  They  who  have  been  accustomed  to  the  gaudiness  and 
inane  phraseology  of  many  modern  writers,  if  they  persist 
21* 


246  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

in  reading  this  book  to  its  conclusion,  will,  no  doubt,  fre- 
quently have  to  struggle  with  feelings  of  strangeness  and 
awkwardness.  They  will  look  round  for  poetry,  and  will 
bo  induced  to  inquire  by  what  species  of  courtesy  these 
attempts  can  be  permitted  to 'assume  that  title."  Oh,  Mr. 
Wordsworth  !  will  they  alone,  who  have  been  accustomed 
to  gaudy  and  inane  phraseology,  struggle  with  feelings  of 
strangeness  in  reading  your  Idiot  Boy,  and  look  round  for 
poetry  1  May  not  the  spirit,  deeply  imbued  with  Homer, 
Virgil,  Shakspeare,  Milton,  feel  somewhat  strange  at  meet- 
ing with  such  lines  as  these — 

"  Burr,  burr!    Now  Johnny's  lips  they  burr! 
As  loud  as  any  mill,  or  near  it; 
Meek  as  a  lamb  the  pony  moves, 
And  Johnny  makes  the  noise  he  loves, 
And  Betty  listens,  glad  to  hear  it !" 

And  may  it  not  look  round,  with  somewhat  of  a  blank 
amazement,  for  poetry  1 

Really,  such  compositions  as  these  seem  to  be  published 
as  experiments  to  ascertain  rather  the  quantum  of  man- 
kind's credulity,  than  any  important  fact.  It  is  said,  that 
Wordsworth  carefully  corrects  his  poems;  and  he  himself 
begs  to  be  exempted  from  "  the  most  dishonourable  accu- 
sation which  can  be  brought  against  an  author,  namely, 
that  of  an  indolence,  which  prevents  him  from  endeavour- 
ing to  ascertain  what  is  his  duty,  or,  when  his  duty  is 
ascertained,  prevents  him  from  performing  it."  Yet  I 
could  almost  fancy  that  such  poems  as  the  Idiot  Boy  were 
composed  while  the  author  was  drawing  on  his  boots  in 
the  morning,  and  then  that,  over  his  wine  in  the  evening, 
he  had  exercised  his  ingenuity  in  fitting  a  theory  to  his 
verses.  He  very  wrongly  omits  to  point  out  the  most  im- 
portant moral  of  the  Idiot  Boy,  which  decidedly  is  to  be 
drawn  from  the  pseudo-malady  of  Susan  Gale,  and  its  rapid 
departure,  and  which  seems  to  be,  that  real  misfortunes 
cure  fanciful  patients.  But,  to  be  serious,  can  any  one 
assert  that  the  maternal  passion  is  not  rather  held  up  to 
ridicule  than  to  admiration,  by  being  found  in  company 
with  such  associates'?     So  far  from  the  feeling  developed 


WORDSWORTH.  247 

in  this  poem  being  able  to  give  importance  to  the  action 
and  situation,  the  poor  feeling,  like  a  baby  overlaid  by  a 
fat  mother,  is  smothered  beneath  the  overpowering  comi- 
caHty  of  the  action  and  situation.  I  would  ask,  what  has 
Wordsworth  gained  by  working  in  coarse  materials,  in 
order  to  illustrate  the  "  primary  laws  and  great  affections 
of  our  nature?"  He  may  have  traced  '■'■  truly ^''  but  cer- 
tainly not  "  unostentatiously,"  (for  the  very  attempt  is 
ostentatious,)  the  workings  of  a  silly  woman's  mind  in 
losing  her  idiot  boy  ;  but  what  has  this  to  do  with  the  more 
noble,  the  more  dignified,  manifestations  of  the  maternal 
passion  ?  He  ought  to  show  that  there  is  some  great  ad- 
vantage in  the  introduction  of  vulgar  characters,  and  in 
the  use  of  trivial  incidents,  to  counterbalance  the  defects 
naturally  produced  by  such  a  descent  from  poetic  dignity. 
Shakspeare's  Lear  is  a  king,  and  his  daughters  are  prin- 
cesses, and  his  history  is  founded  on  no  less  an  event  than 
the  loss  of  a  kingdom ;  yet  the  paternal  feelings,  with  all 
their  fluctuations,  are,  I  should  imagine,  displayed  as  finely 
in  his  sufferings,  as  they  could  be,  if  he  were  a  Johnny, 
and  his  daughters  Betty  Foys.  To  be  odd  is  not  to  be 
original,  in  a  good  sense.  Nature  may  be,  when  unadorned, 
adorned  the  most  ;  but  a  cousin-Betty  dress  will  spoil  her 
form  more  than  a  velvet  robe  and  sweeping  train.  A  rose 
with  all  its  leaves,  has  the  beauty  of  proportion  as  well  as 
of  colour.  Strip  off  the  leaves,  and  the  flower  does  but 
encumber  the  slim  and  naked  stalk.  Wordsworth,  in  his 
prologue  to  Peter  Bell,  represents  the  muse  as  tempting 
him  to  loftier  themes,  in  the  following  really  excellent 
lines : 

"  I  know  the  secrets  of  a  land 

Where  human  foot  did  never  stray; 
Fair  is  the  land  as  evening  t^kies, 
And  cool — though  in  the  depth  it  lies 
Of  burning  Africa. 

"  Or  we'll  unto  the  realm  of  Faery, 

Among  the  lovely  shades  of  things  ; 
Tlie  shadowy  forms  of  mountains  bare, 
And  streams,  and  bowers,  and  ladies  fair, 
Tiie  shades  of  palaces  and  kings  !" 


248  Wilson's  miscella^neous  writings. 

And  the  poet  replies  to  these  seductions, 

"  Long  have  I  loved  what  I  behold, 

The  night  that  calms,  the  day  that  cheers; 
The  common  growth  of  mother  earth 
Suffices  me — her  tears,  her  mirth. 
Her  humblest  mirth  and  tears. 

"  The  dragon's  wing,  the  mystic  ring, 

I  shall  not  covet  for  my  dower. 
If  I  along  that  lowly  way 
With  sympathetic  heart  may  stray. 

And  with  a  soul  of  power. 

"  These  given,  what  more  need  I  desire, 
To  stir,  to  soothe,  to  elevate? 
What  nobler  marvels  than  the  mind 
May  in  life's  daily  prospect  find. 
May  find,  or  these  create  ] 

"  A  potent  wand  doth  sorrow  wield; 
What  spell  so  strong  as  guilty  fearl 
Repentance  is  a  tender  sprite. 
If  aught  on  earth  have  heavenly  might, 
'Tis  lodged  within  her  silent  tear." 

Now  this  is  beautiful,  and  had  Wordsworth  always,  or 
often,  written  thus,  and  in  strict  accordance  with  the  prin- 
ciples conveyed  in  the  above  exquisite  lines,  it  would  (as 
Johnson  said  of  Gray)  "  have  been  vain  to  blame,  and 
useless  to  praise  him."  But,  when  we  drop  from  such 
chaste  and  classical  poetry,  at  once,  "  a  thousand  fathoms 
down"  to  such  a  stanza  as  this, 

"  Here  sit  the  vicar  and  his  dame, 

And  there,  my  good  friend  Stephen  Otter ; 

And,  ere  the  light  of  evening  fail. 

To  them  I  must  relate  the  tale 
Of  Peter  Bell  the  Potter." 

When  we  read  the  talc  itself,  of  Peter  Bell,  "  who  had  a 
dozen  wedded  wives,"  and  who  is  converted  to  a  holy  life, 
partly  by  a  dead  body  which  he  sees  in  a  river,  and  partly 
by  a  '■^fervent  methodist,"  but  chiefly,  and  in  truth,  by  the 
ministry  of  a  desolate  donkey,  wliich. 


WORDSWORTH.  249 


— "  with  motion  dull, 
Upon  the  pivot  of  his  skull 
Turn'd  round  his  long  left  ear ;" 


and,  moreover, 


— "did  lengthen  out 
More  ruefully  an  endless  shout, 
The  long  dry  see-saw  of  liis  horrible  bray ;" 

when  we  are  told, 

— "  that  through  prevailing  grace 
He,  not  unmoved,  did  notice  now 
The  cross  upon  thy  shoulders  scored, 
Meek  beast !  in  memory  of  the  Lord, 
To  whom  all  human-kind  shall  bow  ;" 

and  when  we  learn,  that,  in  consequence  of  all  this,  the 
said  Peter  Bell 

"Forsook  his  crimes,  repressed  his  folly. 
And  after  ten  months'  melancholy, 

[Why  te7b  ?] 
Became  a  good  and  honest  man  I" 

how  can  we  shake  with  any  passion,  but  that  of  laughter? 
Repentance  is,  indeed,  a  tender  sprite,  and  if  she  "  do  her 
spiriting  gently,"  may  melt  into  the  heart ;  but  she  is,  in 
truth,  too  tender  for  contact  with  such 

"Alum  styptics,  whose  contracting  power 
Shrinks  her  thin  essence  like  a  shrivell'd  flower." 

And  this  is  the  poem,  of  which  Wordsworth  says  it  could 
not  be  published  in  company  with  the  "  Wagonner,"  "  with- 
out disadvantage,"  "  from  the  higher  tone  of  imagination, 
and  the  deeper  touches  of  passion,  aimed  at"  in  it  ! ! 

But  Wordsworth  has  not  only  contrived  to  place  mater- 
nal affection  and  repentance  in  an  equivocal  light ;  he  has 
even  been  very  merry  with  his  own  darling  power,  imagi- 
nation, of  which  he  says,  "  the  soul  may  fall  away  from 


250  avilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

it,  not  being  able  to  sustain  its  grandeur !"  That  he  has 
fallen,  overdazzled  in  the  attempt  to  illustrate  her  divine 
energies,  most  persons  will  acknowledge,  who  read  the 
tale  of"  Goody  Blake  and  Harry  Gill."  He  says  that,  in 
this  poem,  he  "  wished  to  draw  attention  to  the  truth,  that 
the  power  of  the  human  imagination  is  sufficient  to  pro- 
duce such  changes,  even  in  our  physical  nature,  as  might 
almost  appear  miraculous."  The  story,  in  plain  prose,  of 
the  criminal  who  was  bled  to  death  by  imagination  merely, 
who,  by  hearing  his  sinking  state  described,  (a  bandage 
having  been  placed  over  his  eyes,)  actually  dropped  life- 
less at  the  words,  "  he  dies,"  seems  to  me  more  forcibly 
to  display  the  power  of  the  human  imagination,  than  the 
fact  which  Wordsworth  has  chosen  to  versify  for  that  pur- 
pose. The  fact,  which  Wordsworth  calls  "  a  valuable 
illustration,"  is  as  follows  : — Goody  Blake  a  very  poor 
old  woman,  was  detected  by  Harry  Gill,  a  lusty  drover, 
in  pulling  sticks  out  of  his  hedge.  Now  this  is  an  offence 
which  no  farmer  can  pardon  ;  so  Harry  Gill  treated  poor 
Goody  Blake  rather  roughly,  on  which  the  vindictive  wo- 
man prayed  "  to  God,  who  is  the  judge  of  all,  that  he 
might  never  more  be  warm."  And  he  never  more  teas 
warm,  in  spite  of  three  greatcoats  and  innumerable  blan- 
kets. Surely  this  was  rather  more  than  poetical  justice ; 
for  it  is  a  sore  trial  to  a  farmer's  temper  to  have  his  hedges 
spoiled,  especially  to  a  drover,  whose  cattle  may  be  ten 
miles  off  before  the  morning,  if  his  fences  are  broken  over 
night.  Now,  I  also  know  of  a  striking  fact,  exemplifying 
the  power  of  the  human  imagination.  It  is  as  follows  : — 
There  is  an  echo  in  the  garden  of  a  nobleman  in  a  southern 
county,  which,  if  both  the  speaker  and  hearer  be  placed  in 
proper  situations,  appears  as  a  voice  proceeding  from  among 
the  tombs  of  a  churchyard  close  by.  A  gentleman,  igno- 
rant of  this  circumstance,  was  walking  in  the  garden,  when 
a  mischievous  person,  throwing  his  voice  into  the  church- 
yard, said,  "  Thou  shalt  die  before  twelve  this  night ;"  and 
the  gentleman  (who  was  in  a  delicate  state  of  health)  ac- 
tually did  die  that  night,  from  the  shock  he  received,  even 
although  the  trick  was  afterwards  explained  to  him.  Now, 
although  I  consider  this  an  important  fact,  as  showing  how 
prophecies  work  their  own  accomplishment,  and  how  the 


WORDSWORTH.  251 

'■'■greatest  change^''  of  all  may  be  produced  in  our  physical 
nature  by  the  power  of  the  imagination,  I  do  not  consider 
it  a  fit  subject  for  poetry,  any  more  than  Prince  Hohcn- 
lohe's  curative  miracles,  or  the  magnetic  wonders  of  Main- 
aduc  ;  nor  would  I  put  it  into  verse,  even  though  I  should 
"  have  the  satisfaction"  (as  Wordsworth  tells  us,  with  re- 
spect to  Harry  Gill)  "  of  knowing  that  it  had  been  com- 
municated to  many  hundreds  of  people,  who  would  never 
have  heard  of  it,  had  it  not  been  narrated  as  a  ballad,  and 
in  a  more  impressive  metre  than  is  usual  in  ballads."  What 
this  more  impressive  metre  is,  we  may  learn  by  a  refer- 
ence to  the  poem  itself: — 

"  Oh,  what's  the  matter,  what's  the  matter. 
What  is't  that  ails  young  flarry  Gill, 
That  evermore  his  teelli  tliey  chatter, 
Chatter,  cliatter,  chatter  still. 

"Of  waistcoats  Harry  has  no  lack, 
Good  duffle  gray  and  flannel  fine; 
He  has  a  blanket  on  liis  back, 

And  coats  enough  to  smother  nine!" 

And  this  tale,  Wordsworth  tells  us,  ho  related  in  metre, 
amongst  other  reasons,  because  "  we  see  that  Pope,  by  the 
power  of  verse  alone,  has  contrived  to  render  \\\q,  jilainest 
common  sense  interesting  !"  It  is  a  pity  that  Wordsworth 
will  not  allow  us  to  take  his  ballads  as  mere  levities,  or 
pieces  of  humour.  As  such  they  might  possess  consider- 
able merit ;  but  as  it  is,  we  begin  to  laugh,  and  then  the 
theory  comes  over  us  with  a  spasmodic  chill.  We  prirn 
up  our  mouths,  with  the  reflection,  that  this  apparently 
good  fun  is  "a  valuable  illustration  of  an  important  fact." 
We  should  shake  hands  with  Peter  Bell,  if  he  did  not  pre- 
tend to  "  a  high  lone  of  imagination."  Were  we  to  read 
even  John  Gilpin  with  such  an  awllil  impression,  we  should 
be  as  grave  over  it  as  over  a  sermon.     But 

"  ritlenti  dicere  verum 
Quid  vetat!" 

The  most  important  and  melancholy  convictions  come  to 


252  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

us  in  a  laugh — only  they  must  come  spontaneously,  un- 
suggested,  uninfluenced  by  a  theory.  The  story  must  tell 
itself;  the  moral  must  shine  through  it  like  the  sun  ;  the 
motive  must  be  transparent  as  the  day.  It  is  a  clumsy 
mode  of  instruction  that  itself  requires  explanation;  it  is  a 
dull  joke  that  asks  for  analysis.  Wisdom  must  be  drop- 
ped like  seed,  not  hammered  in  like  a  nail.  The  human 
mind  (of  which  Wordsworth  professes  to  know  so  much) 
sets  itself  against  a  formal  attempt  to  instruct  or  improve  it. 
Many  persons  may  be  the  better  for  reading  John  Gilpin, 
if  it  were  only  for  the  cordial  spirit  of  drollery,  without  a 
grain  of  malice,  that  runs  through  it;  but  if  Cowper  had 
prefixed  a  philosophical  disquisition  to  the  ballad,  we  could 
only  have  thought  of  the  author's  coxcombry.  But  some 
of  Wordsworth's  defenders  may  say  the  poet  meant  you 
to  laugh  sometimes.  I  ask,  would  he  be  well  pleased  if 
we  laughed  at  Peter  Bell's  catastrophe  ? 

I  now  proceed  to  point  out  the  second  error  into  which 
the  principle  under  consideration  has  led  our  author.  He 
has  given  a  false  importance  to  certain  actions  and  situa- 
tions, and  has  thereby  been  betrayed  into  language  unsuit- 
able to  the  occasion.  As,  in  the  first  instance,  he  stripped 
the  feeling  naked,  he  has,  in  this,  trimmed  it  up  in  furbe- 
lows and  flounces.  There  seems  to  be  the  greater  neces- 
sity for  noticing  this  defect  at  large,  inasmuch  as  the 
peculiarity  mentioned  is  vaunted  by  Wordsworth's  ad- 
mirers as  not  only  the  distinguishing  characteristic  of  his 
poetry,  but  the  great  source  of  its  excellence.  They  say 
that,  while  other  writers  debase  what  is  noble  in  itself  by 
their  method  of  conveying  it  to  the  mind,  Wordsworth 
glorifies  the  meanest  subject,  and  turns  all  he  touches 
(even  pots  and  kettles)  into  gold.  As  ancient  fables  are 
full  of  instruction,  let  us  remember  that  King  Midas,  who 
had  this  enriching  faculty,  was  as  much  approximated  to 
the  lower  orders  of  creation  by  one  other  sad  peculiarity, 
as  he  was  to  the  angelic  race  by  being  a  sort  of  living  phi- 
losopher's stone.  Is  there  not  as  much  danger  of  the 
mean  subject  dragging  the  splendid  illustration  of  it  into 
the  depths  of  bathos,  as  there  is  likelihood  of  the  splendid 
illustration  raising  the  mean  subject  to  the  skies  ?  May 
not  incongruity  as   much  be  shown  in  dignifying  what  is 


WORDSWORTH.  253 

base,  as  in  debasing  what  is  dignified  ?  and  may  not  truth 
be  equally  profaned  by  such  process?  Nay,  is  it  not  a 
greater  hazard  "  to  raise  a  mortal  to  the  skies,"  than  to 
"  draw  an  ang<pl  down  ?"  for  the  mortal  may  look  very 
foolish  in  angelic  company,  but  the  angel  will  walk  on  his 
way  unblenched  amidst  the  sons  of  earth. 

Wordsworth  tells  us,  in  his  preface,  that  it  has  been  his 
object,  not  only  to  choose  incidents  and  situations  from 
common  life,  but  "  at  the  same  time  to  throw  over  them  a 
certain  colouring  of  imagination,  whereby  ordinary  things 
should  be  presented  to  the  mind  in  an  unusual  way."  That 
he  has  succeeded  in  presenting  ordinary  things  to  the  mind 
in  an  unusual  way,  few  persons  will  deny  who  read  the 
following  lines,  taken  from  a  sonnet  on  a  Wild  Duck's 
Nest ;  but  whether  the  colouring  be  imagination's  own, 
some  may  sceptically  doubt : 

"  Th'  imperial  consort  of  the  Fairy  King 
Owns  not  a  sylvan  bower;  or  gorgeous  cell, 
Witli  emerald  floor'd,  and  with  purpurcal  shell 
Ceiiing'd  and  roof'd  ;  that  is  so  fair  a  thing 
As  this  low  structure,"  &c.  &c.  &c. 

"  VJords  cannot  jiaint  th'  o'ershadowing  yew-tree  bough 
And  dimly-gleaming  nest,"  &c. 

"I  gaze — and  almost  wish  to  lay  aside 
Humanity,  weak  slave  of  cumbrous  pride !" 

In  other  words,  the  poet  is  so  enchanted  at  the  sight  of 
a  duck's  nest,  that  he  longs  to  become  a  duck  himself,  and 
to  creep  into  the  creature's  warm  and  cozy  tenement. 

One  may  deduce,  from  this  specimen,  one  great  cause  of 
Wordworth's  poetical  errors.  He  feels  intensely,  and  he 
gives  an  over-importance  to  his  own  particular  feelings, 
partly  from  a  vanity,  which  one  is  sorry  to  see  in  a  truly 
great  man;  and  partly  from  having  met  with  admirers 
who  deify  his  very  faults,  until  he  is  irrevocably  confirmed 
in  them.  A  belief  that  what  interests  oneself  must  interest 
others,  is  indeed  common  to  all  human  beings ;  but  a  man 
who  comes  before  the  public  should  cool  down  liis  mind, 
after  the  fervour  of  composition,  to  ihe  plain  sense  ques- 

voL.  I.  22 


254  Wilson's  .miscellaneous  mritings. 

tion — "  Will  what  I  have  written  strike  others  in  the  same 
light  as  myself?" 

This  question  Wordsworth  scarcely  seems  to  ask  him- 
self; he  sci'/s,  indeed,  "  I  am  sensible  that  my  associations 
must  have  sometimes  been  particular,  instead  of  general, 
and  that,  consequently,  giving  to  things  a  false  importance, 
sometimes  from  diseased  impulses,  I  may  have  written 
upon  unworthy  subjects."  Why  then  tread  by  choice  on 
such  dangerous,  such  debateable  ground  ?  Why,  if  there 
be  but  one  step  from  the  sublime  to  the  ridiculous,  annihi- 
late that  one?  He  will  concede  nothing  to  the  perhaps 
honest  prejudices  of  mankind,  even  in  so  trifling  a  matter 
as  the  choice  of  names  ;  and  such  appellations  as  Betty 
Foy,  Harry  Gill,  and  Peter  Bell,  because  they  seem  good 
to  himself,  must  be  accepted  by  his  reader.  Have  these 
also  a  meaning  "  too  deep  for  tears  ?"  He  does  not  go 
out  of  himself  sufficiently  to  see  things  in  their  due  pro- 
portion. It  is  remarkable,  that  in  exemplifying  the  powers 
of  mind  requisite  for  the  production  of  poetry  by  appro- 
priate quotations,  those  quotations  are  generally  selected 
from  his  own  works.  In  speaking  of  imagination,  it  ap- 
pears as  if  he  did  not  so  much  wish  to  show  what  the 
faculty  is,  as  to  prove  that  he  himself  is  possessed  of  it. 
He  remarks  upon  the  following  couplet : 

"  His  voice  was  buried  among  trees, 
Yet  to  be  come  at  by  the  breeze ;" 

"  A  metaphor  expressing  the  love  of  seclusion  by  which 
this  bird  (the  stock-dove)  is  marked,  and  characterizing 
its  note  as  not  partaking  of  the  shrill  and  the  piercing, 
and  therefore  more  easily  deadened  by  the  intervening 
shade;  yet  a  note  so  peculiar,  and  withal  so  pleasing,  that 
the  breeze,  gifted  with  that  love  of  the  sound  which  the 
poet  feels,  penetrates  the  shade  in  which  it  is  entombed, 
and  conveys  it  to  the  ear  of  the  listener."  Now  all  this 
might  be  in  the  poet's  mind  when  he  wrote  the  couplet,  but 
will  it  be  in  his  reader's  when  he  reads  it  ?  Again,  he  tells 
us :  "  In  the  series  of  poems  placed  under  the  head  of 
Imagination,  I  have  begun  with   one  of  the   earliest  pro- 


WORDSWORTH. 


255 


cesses  of  nature  in  the  developement  of  this  faculty. 
Guided  by  one  of  my  oion  primary  consciousnesses,  I 
have  represented  a  commutation  and  transfer  of  internal 
feelings,  co-operating  with  external  accidents  to  plant  for 
immortality  images  of  sight  and  sound  in  the  celestial  soil 
of  the  imagination."  We  turn  to  the  poem,  and  receive 
the  following  piece  of  intelligence  : — 

"There  was  a  boy;  ye  knew  him  well,  ye  cliffs 
And  islands  of  Winander!" 

This  boy's  favourite  amusement  was  to  hoot  like  an  owl. 
The  operation  is  thus  described  : 

"  With  fingers  interwoven,  both  hands 
Press'd  closely,  palm  to  palm,  and  to  his  mouth 
Uplifted,  ho,  as  through  an  instrument, 
Blew  mimic  hootings  to  the  silent  owls, 
That  they  might  answer  liim." 

Then  comes  the  plantation  for  immortality  : 

"  When  it  chanced 
That  pauses  of  deep  silence  mock'd  his  skill. 
Then,  sometimes,  in  that  silence,  while  he  hung 
Listening,  a  gentle  shock  of  mild  surprise 
Has  carried  tur  into  his  heart  the  voice 
Of  mountain  torrents ;  or  the  visible  scene 
Would  enter  unawares  into  his  mind 
With  all  its  solemn  imagery,"  &c. 

The  boy  dies,  and  this  historian  tells  us: — 

"  I  believe  that  oftentimes, 
A  long  half-hour  together,  I  have  stood 
Mute — looking  at  the  grave  in  which  he  lies." 

This  is  all  the  information  that  the  poet  gives  us  on  the 
subject,  and  the  only  outward  and  visible  reason  that  ap- 
pears for  the  deep  interest  wherewith  Wordsworth  ponders 
over  his  grave,  is,  that  the  boy  was  fond  of  imitating  the 
hooting  of  an  owl.  As  to  the  circumstance  of  the  boy's 
sensibility  to   nature,  hovv  could   Wordsworth  know   it, 


256  avilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

unless  from  the  boy  himsolf  ?  whicli  is  most  improbable, 
for 

"  This  boy  was  taken  from  his  mates,  and  died 
In  childhood,  ere  he  was  full  twelve  years  old  ;" 

and  lads  of  twelve  years  old  do  not  speak  of  their  feelings, 
especially  of  this  nature,  if  indeed  they  ever  have  such 
feelings. 

But  the  explanation  of  the  whole  is  to  be  found  in  the 
expression,  "  guided  by  one  o^ my  own  primary  conscious- 
nesses." Wordsworth,  as  being  a  poet,  who  is  a  man  of 
a  thousand,  felt  thus  ;  and  therefore  runs  into  the  absurdity 
of  attributing  such  feelings  to  any  other  boy,  among  the 
thousand,  who  happens  to  hoot  to  the  owls,  as  he  himself 
did  when  young. 

This  over-importance  which  Wordsworth  gives  to  his 
slightest  sensations,  produces  in  his  writings  a  solemnity 
about  trifles,  a  seriousness  and  energy  in  little  things, 
which  bears  the  appearance  (I  believe  the  appearance 
only)  of  affectation — very  destructive  to  the  simplicity 
which  he  desires  should  characterize  his  compositions. 
For  instance,  in  the  following  verses  : 

"  I  wandcr'd  lonely  as  a  cloud 

That  floats  on  high  o'er  vales  and  hills. 
When  all  at  once  I  saw  a  crowd — 
A  host  of  golden  daffodils." 

^\^lat  a  prelude  is  the  pomposity  of  the  cloud-simile,  to 
the  host  of  daffodils  which  were  "  tossing  their  heads  in 
sprightly  dance !"     Then  he  goes  on  to  say, 

"I  gazod,  and  gazed,  but  little  thought 
What  wealth  to  inc  tho  show  had  brought. 
For  oft  when  on  my  couch  1  lie, 
In  vacant  or  in  pensive  mood, 
They  flash  upon  that  inward  eye. 
Which  is  the  bliss  of  solitude  ; 
And  then  my  heart  with  pleasure  fills 
And  dances  with  the  dafibdils!" 

lie  calls  this  a  sort  of"  ocular  spectrum," — a  most  bilious 


WORDSWORTH.  257 

"  ocular  spectrum"  indeed,  as  ever  haunted  the  jaundiced 
sight !     VVhat  a  pity  that  the  beautiful  expression, 

"  Tliat  inward  eye, 
Which  is  the  bliss  of  solitude," 

should  be  found  in  such  bad  company  !  Thus  it  is  that 
Wordsworth's  most  exquisite  thoughts  and  images  escape 
the  common  view,  like  grains  of  gold  in  the  unsifted  sands 
of  Pactolus. 

Again,  in  the  Excursion,  Wordsworth  thus  sounds  the 
trumpet  of  preparation,  to  herald  in — a  lamb ! 

"  List !  I  heard 
From  yon  hiitre  breast  of  rock  a  solemn  bleat, 
Sent  forth  as  if  it  were  tlie  mountain's  voice, 
As  if  the  visible  mountain  made  the  cry  ! 
Again  ]         *        *        *        * 
It  was  a  lamb  left  somewhere  to  itself, 
The  plaintive  spirit  of  the  solitude !" 

In  this  instance,  also,  I  doubt  not  but  that  "  the  effect  upon 
the  soul"  (that  is,  Wordsworth's  soul)  "  was  such  as  he 
expressed."  I  can  well  believe,  that  to  a  poet,  amidst  the 
utter  desolation  of  incumbent  mountains,  where 

"  The  region  all  around 
Stands  silent,  empty  of  all  shape  of  life,'' 

the  bleat  of  a  lamb  may  be  a  solemn  thing;  but  as  few 
persons  can  hear  such  a  sound  under  such  circumstances — 
as  fewer  still  can  hear  it  with  a  poet's  sensibility — it  were 
wise  in  the  bard  to  keep  the  feeling  to  himself,  or,  at  any 
rate,  to  mention  it  only  in  confidence  to  a  few  particular 
friends.  It  neither  reads  nor  tells  well  in  a  library  or 
drawing-room — and  the  Excursion  is  rather  too  weighty  a 
companion  for  the  mountain-tops. 

I  have  frequently  heard  quoted,  as  a  proof  of  "  that  fine 
colouring  of  imagination"  which  Wordsworth  can  fling 
over  the  humblest  subject,  the  following  passage  from  the 
Wagon  ner : 

"  And  the  smoke  and  respiration, 
Rising,  like  an  exhalation, 
90* 


258  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

Blends  with  t]ic  mist — a  moving  shroud 
To  form — an  undiasolvinrr  cloud, 
Which,  with  slant  ray,  the  merry  sun 
Takes  delight  to  play  upon. 

[Wliich  must  be  pronounced  iqjiin.'] 

Never  surely  old  Apollo, 
He,  or  other  god  as  old, 
Of  whom  in  story  we  are  told, 
VViio  had  a  flivourito  to  follow 
Through  a  battle,  o)-  elsewhere. 
Round  the  object  of  his  care, 
In  a  time  of  peril,  threw 
Veil  of  such  celestial  hue; 
Interposed  so  bright  a  screen 
Ilim  and  his  enemies  between  !" 

There  is  a  mixture  of  poverty  and  grandeur  in  the  very 
diction  of  these  lines  (as  I  have  intimated  by  marking  some 
mean  expressions  by  Italics) — but  let  that  pass.  Of  what 
is  the  poet  speaking?  Would  any  one  divine  that  he  was 
describing  the  breath  and  steam  (surely  he  has  kept  clear 
of  the  "  real  language"  of  men  in  this  instance)  proceeding 
from  a  team  of  horses?  Could  any  CEdipus  surmise,  that 
"  Apollo's  favourite"  is  only  a  type  of  "  mild  Benjamin" 
"  the  VVagonncr" — "  his  enemies"  only  a  metaphor  for 
Bcnjamiu's  master,  angry  at  his  staying  too  long  on  the 
road, 

"  Who  from  Keswick  has  pricked  forth, 
Sour  and  surly  as  the  North  1" 

It  is  easy  to  call  this  sublimity.  It  is  equally  easy  to  call 
it  fustian  and  bombast.  W' hat,  indeed,  is  bombast  but  a 
disproportion  between  the  incident,  or  idea,  and  the  lan- 
guage that  conveys  the  incident  or  idea?  What  more 
could  Wordsworth  have  said  in  describing  the  sun-illu- 
minated smoke  of  a  whole  army  in  combat,  than  he  has 
said  of  the  perspiring  horses?  If  the  humbler  the  object 
is,  the  nobler  is  the  effort  of  the  imagination  in  aggran- 
dizing it,  it  is  plain,  that  if  he  had  compared  the  steam 
from  a  tea-kettle  to  Apollo's  celestial  veil,  the  image  would 
have  been  still  finer.  But,  if  a  due  regard  to  proportion 
be  essential  to  produce  the  pleasure  which  the  mind  takes 


WORDSWORTH.  250 

in  her  perception  of  things  ;  if  we  turn  with  disgust  from  a 
cottage  with  a  Grecian  portico  ;  if  even  nature  teach  us,  by 
her  own  works,  that  a  certain  scale  is  to  bo  observed  (for 
she  does  not  place  a  Mont  Blanc  amongst  the  mountains  of 
Cumberland,  or  a  Skiddavv  close  to  Box  Hill) — then  we 
must  allow  that  Wordsworth  is  greatly  wrong  when  he 
places  the  low  and  the  lofty  in  such  immediate  juxtaposi- 
tion.    It  is  very  pretty,  doubtless,  to  say,  that 

"Tlio  meanest  flower  that  blows  can  give 
Thoughts  which  do  often  lie  too  deep  for  tears  ;" 

but  there  should  be  differences  and  shades  of  degree  in  our 
raptures;  a  daisy  should  not  impart  the  same  elevation  of 
feeling  as  a  cloud-canopied  mountain,  and  a  man  must  be 
near-sighted  indeed  who  can  pore  upon  the  one,  while  the 
other  is  towering  above  him.  Why  has  Nature  set  lorth 
such  a  majestic  banquet,  if  her  humbler  fare  suffices  to 
nourish  the  mind  to  its  utmost  capacity  and  vigour? 

The  same  remarks  will  apply,  even  more  forcibly,  to 
the  following  passage  also  taken  from  the  Wagonner  : 

"  Now,  heroes,  for  the  true  commotion, 
The  triumph  of  your  late  devotion  ! 
Can  aught  on  earth  impede  delight 
Still  mounting  to  a  higher  height; 
And  higher  still — a  greedy  flight ! 
Can  any  low-born  care  pursue  her, 
Can  any  mortal  clog  come  to  her  ? 
No  notion  have  they — not  a  thought 
That  is  from  joyless  regions  brought ! 
And,  while  they  coast  the  silent  lake, 
Their  inspiration  I  partake; 
Share  their  empyreal  spirits — yea, 
With  their  enraptured  vision,  see — 
O  fancy,  what  a  jubilee  !" 

Here  is  a  coil  about  heroes  and  devotion,  and  delight,  and 
exemption  from  low-born  care,  and  mortal  clogs  I'or  pat- 
tens.) Who  would  not  think  that  some  high-minded  beings, 
having  just  lifted  their  thoughts  to  heaven,  were  coasting 
"  the  silent  lake"  in  an  ecstasy  of  divine  beatitude;  while 
they  beheld  with  the  eye  of  faith  a  jubilee  of  holy  joy. 


260  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

which  could  be  no  other  than  the  Millennium  ?  But  what 
is  the  real  state  of  the  matter?  A  sailor  and  a  wagonner, 
half-seas-over,  reeling  by  the  side  of  a  lake,  behold 

"Earth,  spangled  sky,  and  lake  serene 
Involved  and  restless  all;" 

or,  in  other  words,  "see  double,"  and  in  a  rapture  of 
maudlin  tenderness,  shake  hands  and  embrace.  This 
being  the  case,  it  seems  rather  an  awkward  confession  of 
the  bard,  that  he  "  partakes  their  inspiration,  and  shares 
their  empyreal  spirits,  (Qu. — imperial  spirits  7)  and  sees, 
as  they  do,  "  a  dancing  and  a  glancing"  among  the  stars. 
Indeed,  did  not  the  poet's  character  stand  so  deservedly 
high,  there  might  be  something  suspicious  in  his  pendiant 
for  drunkards  and  thieves.  In  another  poem,  he  goes  into 
raptures  because  a  child  and  his  grandmother  (as  he  ex- 
presses it)  "both  go  a-stealing  together."  He  mysti- 
cally says, 

"  And  yet  into  whatever  sin  they  may  fall, 
This  child  but  half  knows  it,  and  that  not  at  all." 

And  (as  if  any  teacher  were  needed  to  convince  us  that 
man  is  a  thieving  animal)  he  concludes, 

"  Old  man,  whom  so  oft  I  with  pity  have  eyed, 
I  love  thee,  and  love  the  sweet  boy  at  thy  side : 
Long  yet  mayst  thou  live  !  for  a  teacher  we  see, 
That  lifts  up  the  veil  of  our  nature  in  thee." 

But,  in  the  instance  before  us,  the  bard  takes  care  to  let 
us  know, 

"  This  sight  to  me  the  muse  imparts." 

Oh,  Mr.  Wordsworth,  how,  after  such  an  original  and 
splendid  passage,  could  you  admit  the  most  commonplace 
of  all  commonplaces?  you,  who  profess  to  avoid  poetic 
diction  as  zealously  as  others  cultivate  it,  to  talk  of  "  the 
muse,"  and,  more  horrible  still,  "  the  muse  imparts,''''  and 
(climax  of  abomination  !)  the  rhyme  in  the  next  line  is 
"hearts!"     I  must  extract  one  more    passage  from    the 


WORDSWORTH.  261 

VVagonner,  as  aa  instance  of  the  peril  which  lies  ia  laying 
on  too  vividly  a  colouring  of  imagination. 

"  Right  gfladly  had  the  horses  stirr'd, 
When  they  the  wish'd-for  greeting  heard, 
The  whip's  loud  notice  from  the  door, 
That  they  were  free  to  move  once  more. 
You  think  these  doings 

[i.  e.  Benjamin  getting  drunk] 

must  have  bred 
In  them  disheartening  doubts  and  dread  : 
No!  not  a  horse  of  all  the  eight, 
Although  it  be  a  raoonle^s  night, 
Fears  either  ibr  himself  or  freight !" 

Wonderful !  most  wonderful !  most  contrary  indeed  to  all 
one  should  have  guessed,  supposed,  or  predicted  ! 

AVcll  and  feelingly  may  Wordsworth  say,  that  he  "  for- 
bears to  speak  of  an  incongruity,  which  would  shock  the 
intelligent  reader,  viz.  should  the  poet  interweave  any 
foreign  splendour  of  his  own  with  that  which  the  passion 
naturally  suggests."  Undoubtedly  the  less  said  on  that 
point  the  better. 

Can  it  be  believed  that  such  passages  as  the  above,  from 
the  Wagonner,  should  be  selected  by  Wordsworth's  ad- 
mirers as  proofs  of  his  imaginative  powers  1  I  have  heard 
them  recited  without  one  "  blank  misgiving."  The  more 
strange,  the  more  incongruous  are  the  images  and  expres- 
sions, the  more  does  the  true  disciple  of  Wordsworth  con- 
sider himself  bound  not  only  to  defend,  but  to  prove  them 
admirable.  He  seems  to  have  a  lurking  suspicion  that  he 
will  be  pronounced  in  the  wrong,  and  therefore  chooses 
the  very  worst  specimens  of  the  poet's  manner  to  prove 
that  he  is  in  the  right.  Like  a  wise  general,  he  defends 
the  weakest  post,  and  leaves  the  strongholds  to  take  care 
of  themselves.  Obstinate  in  error,  he  will  not  only  say 
that  black  is  not  black,  but  prove  by  logical  induction,  that 
black  is  white.  In  the  first  edition  of  Peter  Bell  was  a 
stanza,  since  expunged,  and  thus  tacitly  condemned  by  the 
author  himself — one  of  many,  containing  ingenious  con. 
jecturcs  as  to  the  nature  of  an  object  which  Peter  saw  one 


262  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

night  in  the  water,  (a  very  common  and  novel-like  trick, 
by  the  by,  to  raise  a  reader's  curiosity.)  The  stanza  was 
as  follows : 

"  Is  it  a  party  in  a  parlour 

Cramm'd  juj>t  as  tliey  on  earth  were  cramm'd. 
Some  sippinji'  puncli,  some  drinking  tea; 
But,  as  you  by  their  faces  see, 
All  silent,  and  all — damn'dl" 

1  asked  my  Wordsworthian  friend  if  he  really  and  truly 
could  admire  this  passage  !  "Admire  it !"  he  replied,  "  I 
think  it  one  of  the  sublimest  in  the  whole  compass  of  Eng- 
lish poetry  !  How  awfully  grand  is  the  thrilling  contrast 
between  the  common  and  every-day  occupations  of  the 
beings  conjectured  to  be  seen,  and  the  hopeless  horror  of 
their  countenances,  between  their  mirthful  employments, 
and  their  preternatural  silence  I  They  are,  if  we  only 
look  at  them  with  a  casual  eye,  '  some  sipping  punch, 
some  drinking  tea;'  but  the  poet,  by  a  marvellous  and 
almost  divine  stroke  of  the  imagination,  makes  them  'all 
silent  and  all — damn'd  !'  "  The  last  word  fell  with  such  a 
lump  upon  my  ear,  that  I  felt  much  in  the  condition  of  the 
unhappy  party  in  the  parlour,  and  replied  not — for  it  was 
manifestly  useless  to  argue  with  such  an  enthusiastic 
adorer.  A  blind  prostration  of  intellect  to  their  idol,  is 
indeed  the  chief  characteristic  of  Wordsworth's  proselytes. 
The  oracle  sayeth,  "  If  an  author,  by  any  single  compo- 
sition, has  impressed  us  with  respect  for  his  talents,  it  is 
useful  to  consider  this  as  affording  a  presumption  that,  on 
other  occasions  where  we  have  been  displeased,  he,  never- 
theless, may  not  have  written  ill  or  absurdly  ;"  and  ac- 
cordingly the  disciples  say,  "  that  Wordsworth  has  often 
written  finely  cannot  be  denied.  Why  not  then  give  him 
credit  for  always  knowing  what  he  is  about,  better  than 
any  of  us?"  Strange  reasoning!  in  the  face  of  convic- 
tion that 

"  Fallil;lc  man 
Is  still  found  fallible,  however  wise!" 

and  when  we  know  instances,  in   the   first  place,   of  the 


WOKDSWORTH.  263 

worst  authors  writing  one  good  thing,  and  in  the  next,  of 
the  best  authors  writing  some  bad  things.  Even  Milton 
nods,  and  even  Leigh  lltnit  has  written  one  of  the  nnost 
beautiful  small  poems  extant,  beginning,  "  Sleep  breathes 
at  last  from  out  thee,  my  little  patient  boy."  But  the  very 
essence  of  Wordsworthianism  is  the  belief  that  its  king  can 
do  no  wrong.  It  is  tlic  very  popery  of  poetry ;  and  one 
doubt  of  its  Hierarch's  infallibility  would  be  fatal  to  its 
empire.  Therefore  the  disciples  defend  every  line,  every 
word,  that  Wordsworth  has  ever  written — not  as  they 
would  defend  any  passage  in  a  favourite  author,  but  with 
all  the  hlijul  obstinacy  of  men  who  adopt  a  peculiar  creed. 
I  grant  that  all  the  absurdities  of  Wordsworth's  partizans 
are  no  more  to  be  charged  upon  him,  than  all  the  old 
womanism  of  Wesley's  disciples  was  (in  past  times)  attri- 
butable to  their  vigorous-minded  master, — but  S077ie  of  the 
blame  must  attach,  in  both  instances,  to  the  nature  of  the 
creed  and  to  its  propagator.  Wordsworth  talks  much  and 
feelingly  of  the  outcry  raised  against  him  and  his  poems; 
he  has  suffered  more  from  injudicious  praise.  He  depre- 
cates the  injustice  of  his  enemies.  Let  him  rather  pray  to 
be  delivered  from  his  friends.  When  they  declare  that  he 
is  equal  to  Milton,  he  should  be  too  wise  to  believe  them. 

Thus  have  I  endeavoured  to  prove,  by  exposing  the  evil 
tendency  of  an  opposite  principle,  that,  whether  in  pas- 
sages of  description,  sentiment,  or  passion,  the  expression 
should  be  suited  to  the  thought,  and  the  thought  to  the 
expression.  A  diamond  in  a  setting  of  wood,  or  a  nut  in 
a  chasing  of  gold,  alike  offend  that  sense  of  congruity, 
which  nature  has  implanted  in  us.  But  "  words  spoken 
in  due  season  are"  (to  use  the  saying  of  the  wise  man) 
"  as  apples  of  gold  in  pictures  of  silver."  The  meaninor 
is  the  most  precious  part,  but  the  setting  is  precious 
too.  Wordsworth  himself  says,  '<  Proportion  and  con- 
gruity, the  requisite  knowledge  being  supposed,  are  sub- 
jects upon  which  taste  may  be  trusted.  It  is  compe- 
tent to  this  office" — neither  is  this  a  mean  office — for  if 
(as  Shakspeare  says)  "  discretion  is  the  better  part  of  va- 
lour," much  more  is  it  the  better  part  of  genius.  Words- 
worth, in  his  enumeration  of  the  powers  which  constitute 
a  good  poet,  places  judgment  last.     "  Judgment  (he  says) 


264  wilsok's  miscellaneous  writings. 

to  decide  how  and  where,  and  in  what  degree,  eacli  of 
these  faculties  ought  to  be  exorlcd  ;  so  that  tlie  less  shall 
not  be  sacrificed  to  the  greater  ;  nor  the  greater,  sliglding 
the  less,  arrogate,  to  its  oivn  injury,  mm-c  than  its  due.^^ 
I  hope  that  Wordsworth  meant  to  abide  by  the  old  saying, 
'■^though  last  net  least ;"  for  I  do  not  remember  a  single 
instance  of  any  poet  lacking  judgment  (according  to 
Wordsworth's  own  definition  of  it,)  who  has  ever  been 
raised,  by  the  common  verdict  of  mankind,  sanctified  by 
time — the  true  Vox  Populi,  which  Wordsworth  professes 
to  venerate — to  a  primordial  rank  in  his  art. 


Tnus  far  Wordsworth  explains  his  own  theory,  of  which 
the  whole  substance  seems  to  be  the  almost  self-evident 
proposition — that  natural  thoughts,  clothed  in  simple  lan- 
guage, (however  lowly  the  subject,)  speak  at  once  to  the 
heart. 

But  the  poet's  disciples  go  beyond  their  master  in  ag- 
grandizing his  principles  of  composition.  They  "  see  in 
Wordsworth  more  than  Wordsworth  knew."  Conscious, 
perhaps,  that  his  own  exposition  (in  prose)  of  his  theory  can 
lay  claim  to  verbal  originality  alone,  and  that,  moreover, 
it  half  condemns  his  own  practice,  they  deduce  from  his 
works  themselves  a  far  more  sublime  and  mystical  creed 
— the  "  Revelation" — sufficient  as  I  have  heretofore  ob- 
served, in  the  opinion  of  the  elect,  to  work  a  moral  change 
in  any  erring  (but  philosophic)  individual.  The  Revela- 
tion, as  far  as  I  can  learn,  consists  in  a  divine  discovery 
by  the  poet,  of  the  following  arcana — namely,  a  certain 
accordance,  which  imaginative  minds  perceive  when,  shut- 
ting out  the  clamour  of  the  world,  they  listen  to  Nature's 
still  small  voice,  between  the  external  universe,  and  the 
internal  microcosm  of  man  ; — a  purifying  influence  exerted 
through  the  medium  of  visible  objects  upon  the  invisible 
mental  powers; — a  sort  of  anima  miindi  pervading  all 
that  is; — a  sublime  harmony  between  the  natural  and 
moral  creation.     It  is,  in  short,  the  quakerism  of  philoso- 


WORDSWORTH.  265 

phy,  ihe  transcendentalism  of  poetry  ;  a  something  be- 
tween the  abstractedness  of  Plato,  and  the  unction  of 
Madame  Guion.     But  let  Wordsworth  speak  for  himself: 

"  My  voice  proclaims 
How  exquisitely  tlie  inilividual  mind 
(And  the  progressive  powers  perhaps  no  less 
Of  the  whole  species)  to  the  external  world 
Is  fitted  ; — and  how  exquisitely  too 
(Theme  this  but  little  heard  of  among  men  !) 
The  external  world  is  fitted  to  the  mind." 

Is  this  new  ?  Akenside,  in  his  Pleasures  of  Imagination, 
says, 

"  For  as  old  Momnon's  image,  long  renown'd 
By  fabling  Nilus,  to  the  quivering  touch 
Of  Titan's  ray,  with  each  repulsive  string 
Consenting,  sounded  through  the  warbling-  air 
Unbidden  strains;  even  so  did  Nature's  hand 
To  certain  species  of  external  things 
Attune  the  finer  organs  of  the  mind." 

But  Wordsworth,  moreover,  insists  upon  a  few  items  culled 
from  other  quarters.  He  seems  to  believe  in  certain  native 
and  beautiful  properties  of  the  human  heart;  (what  the 
divines  would  say  to  this  I  know  not ;)  he  thinks  that  we 
are  born  in  a  glorious  state  of  wisdom  and  of  "  heaven- 
born  freedom,"  and  that  we  have  nothing  to  do  but  to  keep 
ourselves  aloof  from  the  "  weight  of  custom,"  and  to  carry 
on  one  smooth  unbroken  stream  of  thought  from  infancy 
to  age,  in  order  to  be  very  perfect  creatures.  He  greatly 
reprobates  the  fragmental  manner  in  which  most  persons 
confound  their  identity  by  running  after  new  objects,  or 
adopting  new  opinions  at  ditferent  periods  of  their  lives, 
and  in  consequence  breaks  out  into  the  following  short  but 
pithy  poem : 

"  IVIy  heart  leaps  up,  when  I  behold 
A  rainbow  in  the  sky, 
So  was  it  when  my  life  began, 
So  is  it  now  I  am  a  man, 
So  be  it  when  I  shall  grow  old. 
Or  let  me  die  ! 
VOL.  I.  23 


266  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

The  child  is  father  of  the  man; 
And  I  could  wish  my  days  to  be 
Bound  each  to  each  by  natural  piety." 

This  is  the  whole  of  the  poem,  which  I  have  heard  many 
admirers  of  Wordsworth  extol  as  an  almost  superhuman 
flight  of  intellect.  This,  they  say,  is  the  text  which  con- 
tains the  essence  of  all  his  after  discourses — this  the  epitome 
of  the  Wordsworthian  philosophy — this  the  Shibboleth  of 
the  true  belijevers.  If  you  comprehend  and  feel  this,  you 
are  already  in  the  vestibule  of  the  temple — if  you  do  oiot 
comprehend  and  feel  this,  you  have  come  into  the  world  to 
very  little  purpose — you  are  but  a  piece  of  animated  dust. 
Alas  for  me!  I  can  indeed  understand,  or  seem  to  under- 
stand, this  divine  little  poem ;  but  then  I  can  perceive  in  it 
nothing  beyond  the  quaint  expression  of  a  very  natural 
wish,  often  uttered  both  in  poetry  and  prose,  namely,  to 
preserve  unto  the  evening  of  life 

"  Immaculate  the  manners  of  the  morn." 

In  plain  language,  the  meaning  of  the  poem  appears  to  be — 
"  The  sight  of  a  rainbow  gives  me  as  much  delight  now  as 
when  I  was  a  child,  and  I  hope  that,  when  I  am  old,  I 
shall  still  be  equally  alive  to  this  and  other  beauties  of 
nature.  I  had  rather  die  than  become  insensible  to  them. 
A  man  will  resemble  what  he  was  when  young ;  and,  see- 
ing that  I  was  a  promising  child,  I  trust  that  I  shall  always 
be  consistent,  and  that  feelings  of  piety,  excited  by  natural 
objects,  will  accompany  me  to  my  life's  end."  I  may 
boast  that  I  have  supplied  a  hiatus  in  the  last  three  lines 
by  inserting — "  seeing  that  I  was  a  promising  child,"  for 
without  this  clause  the  reasoning  is  inefficient. 

"  The  child  is  father  of  the  man, 
And  I  could  wish  my  days  to  bo,"  &c. 

is  a  noil  sequitur  :  for  if  childhood  really  contain  the  germ 
of  our  future  character,  it  is  clear  that  this  circumstance 
must  be  either  a  blessing,  or  a  curse,  according  as  a  child 
is  amiable  or  otherwise;  unless,  indeed,  Wordsworth  means 
to  assert  that  all  children  are  born  with  equally  happy  dis- 


■WORDSWORTH.  267 

positions;  and,  in  this  case,  it  would  not  be  worth  while  to 
combat  an  opinion  so  contrary  to  the  conclusions  of  expe- 
rience. But  no ! — he  is  too  orthodox  to  disseminate  such 
a  heresy. 

We  will  now  proceed  to  a  certain  ode,  entitled  "  Inti- 
mations of  Immortality  from  Recollections  of  early  Child- 
hood," since  it  is  the  sermon  of  the  foregoing  text,  the 
opus  magnum,  the  ne  plus  ultra  of  mysterious  excellence; 
it  contains  and  condenses  the  grand  peculiarities  of  "  the 
Revelation."  I  was  once  present  amongst  a  party,  con- 
sisting of  many  true  believers  in  the  Wordsworthian  faith, 
of  a  few  neophytes,  and  one  or  two  absolute  and  wicked 
sceptics.  A  sincere  and  most  zealous  disciple  offered  to 
read  aloud  the  ode  in  question.  Reader,  didst  thou  ever 
hear  a  Wordsworthian  spout  poetry  ?  If  not,  thou  canst 
scarcely  frame  to  thyself  a  mode  of  recitation  so  singular. 
A  praying  Quaker,  a  preaching  Whitfieldian,  is  nothing  to 
a  spouting  Wordsworthian.  In  compliance  (as  I  suppose) 
with  their  master's  wishes,  who  declares  that,  "  in  much 
the  greatest  part  of  his  poems,  as  a  substitute  for  the  classic 
lyre  or  romantic  harp,  he  requires  nothing  more  than  an 
animated  or  impassioned  recitation  adapted  to  the  subject;" 
and  that  the  reader  must  not  be  "  deprived  of  a  voluntary 
power  to  modulate,  m  subordination  to  the  sense,  the  music 
of  the  poem  ;"  taking  a  hint  also,  I  imagine,  from  Words- 
worth's description  of  the  poet's  privilege  to 

"  Murmur  near  the  runnintr  brooks 
A  music  sweeter  than  their  own," 

they  part  chant,  part  speak,  part  murmur,  part  mouth 
(with  many  a  rise  and  fall  and  dying  cadence)  all  poetry, 
but  more  especially  Wordsworth's  poetry,  after  an  un- 
imaginable manner — whether  in  subordination  to  the  sense 
it  were  hard  to  determine. 

No  sooner  had  the  Wordsworthian  begun, 

"  There  was  a  time  when  meadow,  grove,  and  stream, 
The  earth,  and  every  common  sight 

To  me  did  seem 
AppareU'd  in  celestial  light," 


268  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

than  one  of  the  sceptics,  of  laughing  propensities,  crammed 
his  handkerchief  half  way  down  his  throat;  the  other 
looked  keen  and  composed  ;  the  disciples  groaned  ;  and  the 
neophytes  shook  their  heads  in  deep  conviction.  The 
reciter's  voice  deepened  in  unction  as  he  repeated, 

"  The  moon  doth  with  delight 
Look  round  her  when  the  heavens  are  bare," 

and,  unheeding  the  aside  remark  of  the  calmer  sceptic  that 
the  last  was  rather  a  hare  line,  he  proceeded  without  far- 
ther interruption  through  some  really  beautiful  passages, 
descriptive  of  that  season  when  (as  Shakspeare  says) 
"  May  hath  put  a  spirit  of  youth  in  every  thing,"  and  of 
the  regret  which  the  mind  experiences  from  not  sympa- 
thizing with  the  general  gladness  as  vividly  as  in  early 
youth — until  he  came  to  the  following: 

"  Our  birth  is  but  a  sleep  and  a  forgetting ; 
The  sou),  that  rises  with  us,  our  life's  star, 
Hath  had  el.?ewhere  its  setting, 

And  Cometh  from  afar; 
Not  in  entire  forgetfulness, 
And  not  in  utter  nakedness, 
But  trailing  clouds  of  glory,  do  we  come 

(Mere  the  reader's  voice  became  very  impassioned.) 

From  God,  who  is  our  home ; 
Heaven  lies  about  us  in  our  infancy." 

Here  one  of  the  neophytes  timidly  interposed  with — "  I 
confess  that  I  do  not  quite  comprehend  that  passage.  Per- 
haps you  v/ould  be  kind  enough  to  explain  it  to  us."  The 
neophyte  could  not  easily  have  made  a  request  more  dis- 
agreeable, or  more  embarrassing,  to  the  disciple,  who  was 
a  man  hating  definition,  and  delighting  in  the  vague,  the 
obscure,  the  mysterious ;  and  of  whose  mind  the  wdiole  • 
tenor  was  synthetical,  rather  than  analytical.  Making  a 
wry  face,  then,  he  floundered  about  in  a  vain  attempt  to 
render  tlie  poet's  creed  intelligible,  until,  getting  quite  into 
a  [)assion,  he  accused  (he  poor  neophyte  of  having  inter- 
rupted his  feelings  in  their  full  flow  ;  and  roundly  declared 


WORDSWORTH.  269 

that  things  so  out  of  the  common  way,  so  suWime,  and  so 
abstruse,  could  be  conveyed  in  no  language  but  their  own. 
Here  the  composed  sceptic  very  quietly  said,  "It  appears 
to  me,  that  the  passage  in  question  is  nothing  more  than 
an  assertion  of  that  old  Platonic  doctrine,  the  pre-existence 
of  the  soul,  which  the  poet  calls  '  our  life's  star,'  and  which 
he  represents  as  having  previously  set  to,  or,  in  other 
words,  lost  sight  of,  another  state  of  being,  before  it  rises 
upon  this  present  world.  He  also  seems  to  favour  the 
classical  creed  of  a  little  dip  in  Lethe,  before  we  take  upon 
us  the  fleshly  form,  by  the  expression,  'Our  birth  is  but  a 
sleep  and  a  forgetting,'  and  at  the  same  time  avers  that, 
like  the  son  of  Thetis,  we  did  not  undergo  a  complete  im- 
mersion, insomuch  that  glimpses  of  our  former  and  more 
glorious  state  yet  remain  unto  us,  more  especially  in  child- 
hood, as  we  then  are  nearer  to  the  scene  of  our  original 
splendour,  and  as  yet  unclouckMJ  by  the  gross  exhalations 
of  earthly  cares."  The  AV'ordsworthian  loudly  protested 
against  so  commonplace  and  (as  he  called  it)  degrading  an 
exposition  of  the  poet's  doctrine,  and  then  went  on  to  that 
part  of  the  ode,  where  the  author  declares  that  he  does  not 
value  the  recollections  of  childhood  on  account  of  the 
delight,  liberty,  and  hope,  of  that  happy  period, 

"  But  for  those  obstinate  questionings 
Of  sense  and  outward  lliings, 
Fallings  from  us,  vanishirii,'?, 
Blank  misgivings  of  a  creature 
Moving  about  in  worlds  not  realised." 

Hero  again  the  timid  neophyte  besought  a  little  enlight- 
ening. "  What  can  Mailings  from  us'  mean,  I  wonder?" 
he  dolefully  sighed  out,  as  if  he  despaired  of  ever  getting 
beyond  his  noviciate. 

The  previous  annotator  was  again  forced  to  unravel  the 
mystic  knot.  "  The  poet  (he  said)  is  still  speaking  of  the 
dim  recollections,  which  he  supposes  us  to  retain  in  child- 
hood, of  our  former  state,  and  calls  them  'obstinate  ques- 
tionings,' that  ever  recur  to  the  mind  with  the  inquiry, 
Whence  came  we? — transitory  gleams  of  our  glorious 
pre-existence,  that  '  fall  away'  and  '  vanish'  from  before 
us  almost  as  soon  as  they  appear — '  misgivings' that  we 

23* 


270  AVILSOIs's  MISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS. 

arc  not  as  we  have  been — a  feeling  that  we  have  scarcely 
as  yet  realised  our  present  state  of  being  to  ourselves." 
The  neophyte  thanked  the  expositor,  but  still  sighed  ; 
"  for,"  said  he,  "  when  I  think  of  my  childhood,  1  have 
only  visions  of  traps,  and  balls,  and  wliippings.  I  never 
remember  being  '  haunted  for  ever  by  the  Eternal  Mind.' 
To  be  sure,  1  did  ask  a  great  many  questions,  and  was 
tolerably  obstinate,  but  I  fear  these  are  not  the  '  obstinate 
questionings,'  of  which  Mr.  Wordsworth  speaks."  The 
reader  proceeded  : — 

"Hence,  in  a  s»ason  of  calm  weather, 

Though  inland  far  we  be, 
Our  souls  have  sight  of  that  immortal  sea, 

Wliich  brought  us  hither; 
Can  in  a  moment  travel  thitlior, 
And  see  the  children  sport  upon  the  shore, 
And  hear  the  mighty  waters  rolling  evermore." 

"  Well !"  exclaimed  a  sort  of  neutral  personage,  a  very 
good,  but  somewhat  heavy  man — "  these  lines  are,  I  must 
say,  very  grand,  and — (he  paused) — very  sublime  1  I  like 
them  better  than  all  the  rest." — "  Are  you  quite  certain 
that  you  understand  them  ?"  asked  the  laughing  sceptic. 
"  To  be  sure  !"  answered  the  previous  speaker.  "  Have  I 
not  often  put  a  conch  shell  to  my  ear,  and  heard  the  roar- 
ing of  the  sea  as  plainly  as  if  I  were  at  Brighton,  though  I 
really  was  in  London '.'"  A  burst  of  laughter  from  the 
querist  followed  the  reply,  and  became  infectious  to  many 
of  the  party.  When  order  was  restored,  the  other  sceptic, 
who  had  maintained  his  gravity  tliroughout,  remarked  that 
lie  thought  the  neutral's  explanation  of  the  idea  raised  in 
his  mind  by  the  poet's  words  was  interesting,  inasmuch  as 
it  proved  that,  very  frequently,  the  pleasure  we  derive 
from  poetry  consists  in  the  colouring  which  our  own  minds 
impart  to  an  author's  meaning;  and  that  words,  taken  in 
the  aggregate,  often  stamp  on  the  fancy  an  image,  which, 
when  they  are  analysed,  is  found  to  be  scarcely  analogous 
to  their  real  signification.  Thus,  also,  one  line  in  a  poem 
may  excite  a  series  of  delightful  thoughts,  which  the  next 
line  may  destroy  by  giving  too  definite  a  form  to  the  un- 
liuished  sketch  whereon  imagination  had  delighted  to  excr- 


WORDSWORTH.  271 

CISC  her  scope  and  power.  "  To  give  an  instance  of  this," 
he  continued,  '<  I  remember  opening,  for  the  first  time, 
Lord  Byron's  third  canto  of  Childe  Harold,  at  the  notes, 
and  reading  this  line  placed  at  the  end  of  one  of  them, 

'  The  sky  is  changed  ;  and  such  a  change  ! — oh  night  !' 

This  simple  ejaculation  '  Oh  night !'  touched  upon  a  thou- 
sand vague  and  delightful  associations,  and  involuntarily 
I  anticipated  to  myself,  in  a  dim  kind  of  way,  the  grandeur 
that  was  to  follow.  But,  when  I  turned  to  the  page  whence 
the  line  was  taken,  and  read, — 

'  Oh  night, 
And  storm,  and  darkness,  ye  are  wondrous  strong. 
Yet  lovely  in  your  strength,  as  is  the  light 
Of  a  dark  eye  in  woman,' 

the  whole  tone  of  my  feelings  seemed  lowered,  and  the 
same  sort  of  jarring  sensation  was  produced  in  my  spiritual 
man,  as  that  which  our  bodily  organs  experience,  when, 
walking  in  the  dark,  we  put  out  one  foot  with  the  notion 
that  a  deep  step  is  below  it,  and  find  ourselves  still  on  plain 
gi'ound.  This  power  of  association — this  imperfection  of 
language  as  a  vehicle  of  thought — this  omnipotence  of 
mind  over  matter,  should  make  us  less  surprised  that  ideas, 
which  appear  original  and  splendid  to  one  person,  should 
to  another  seem  trite  and  poor.  That  which  Shakspearc 
affirms  of  a  jest,  is  equally  true  with  regard  to  serious 
matters. 

"  Their  propriety  lies  in  the  ear  of  him  that  hears  them. 
AV'ordsworth,  if  I  mistake  not,  himself  acknowledges,  that, 
in  some  instances,  '  feelings  even  of  the  ludicrous  may  bo 
given  to  his  readers  by  expressions  which  appeared  to  liim 
tender  and  pathetic;'  but  he  does  not,  as  in  fairness  he 
should  have  done,  observe,  on  the  other  hand,  that  ideas 
and  expressions  which  he  scarcely  meant  to  be  other  than 
laughable,  or  at  least  subordinate,  may  excite  in  his  ad- 
mirers very  tender  or  noble  feelings.  He  tells  us,  (for  I 
have  accurately  read  his  own  defence  of  his  system,)  '  the 
reader  ought  never  to  forget  that  he  is  himself  exposed  to 
the  same  errors  as  the  poet,  and  perhaps  in  a  much  greater 


272  Wilson's  miscellaneous  wkitings. 

degree  ;'  but,  I  confess,  1  am  of  opinion,  that  in  proportion 
as  the  author's  feeling  of  his  subject  is  more  intense  and 
more  tinged  with  his  own  [)eculiar  consciousness,  in  that 
jM'oportion  is  he  more  liable  to  be  mistaken  in  appreciating 
the  originality  and  excellence  of  his  compositions.  That 
which  we  feel  vividly,  we  are  apt  to  think  we  fee!  newly  ; 
and  all  that  appears  new  to  ourselves,  we  deem  must  be 
new  to  all  the  world.  Every  poet  is,  no  doubt,  original  to 
himself,  just  as  every  retailer  of  Joe  Miller  is  a  wit  in  his 
own  eyes,  for  no  one  knowingly  relates  a  twice-told  tale. 
Let  a  really  original  thought  strike  a  reader  ever  so  much, 
it  can  never  have  upon  his  mind  the  same  full  and  fresh 
effect  that  it  had  on  the  writer's,  when  it  first  struck  him; 
— and  for  this  reason — a  true  poet  can  never  express  his 
whole  meaning:  there  still  remains  behind  that  which 
passes  utterance.  Wordsworth,  fond  as  he  is  of  paradox, 
never  vented  a  stranger  than  when  he  affirmed  that  the 
author  is  a  more  competent  judge  of  his  own  works  than 
the  reader,  because  the  latter  '  is  so  much  less  interested  in 
the  subject.'  The  voice  of  ages, — the  embodied  spirit 
of  human  wisdom — to  which  Wordsworth  declares  '  his 
devout  respect,  his  reverence,  is  due,'  has  decreed  that 
no  man  is  a  competent  witness  in  his  own  cause  ;  and  for 
this  manifest  reason,  that,  as  long  as  we  are  fallible  human 
creatures,  our  self-partiality  must,  to  a  certain  degree 
throw  dust  in  the  eyes  of  the  best  of  us.  It  is  the 
looker-on  who  sees  most  of  the  game  :  it  is  the  coo\,u?iin- 
tcrcstcd  reader  who  can  best  detect  an  author's  errors. 
Even  though  the  former,  as  Wordsworth  fears,  '  may  de- 
cide lightly  and  carelessly,'  yet  his  very  lightness  and 
carelessness  may  hit  off'  a  truer  judgment  than  any  to  which 
the  passionate  earnestness  of  the  poet  can,  in  its  over  zeal, 
attain.  The  fresh  eye  of  a  casual  spectator  can  better 
decide  upon  a  portrait's  resemblance  than  the  eye  of  the 
painter,  who  has  so  long  pored  over  the  canvass,  as  to 
have  his  very  errors  wrought  into  his  visual  perceptions 
with  all  the  force  of  truth,  and  who  has  bestowed  so  much 
attention  upon  each  separate  part,  that  the  result  escapes 
him.  It  is  this  which  renders  it  dangerous  for  an  author 
to  paint  too  exclusively,  as  Wordsworth  has,  from  his  own 
mind.  Although  it  is  not  to  be  expected  that  a  poet's  ideas 
are  to  be  recognised   by  all  the  world,  (since  he  places 


WORDSWORTH.  273 

himself  in  colloquy  with  the  better  part  of  his  species,)  yet 
it  is  a  poet's  wisdom,  as  well  as  his  duty,  to  bring  Ibrward 
such  thoughts  and  feelings  as  shall  be  held  in  common  by 
a  large  body  of  mankind,  otherwise  he  runs  a  risk  of  sub- 
stituting the  idiosyncrasies  of  an  individual,  for  the  grand 
features  of  human  nature  in  general.  The  greater  part  of 
the  Platonic  ode,  to  which  we  have  been  listening,  lies 
under  this  objection,  namely,  that  it  gives  a  private  inter- 
pretation to  a  feeling  almost  universal — I  mean  the  linger- 
ing regret  with  which  we  look  back  upon  the  period  of 
childhood.  Wordsworth  calls  the  ode,  'Intimations  of 
Immortality  from  Recollections  of  early  Childhood.'  It 
should  rather  be  entitled,  '  Intimations  of  Pre-Existence  ;' 
unless  our  author  means  to  say  that,  having  existed  from 
all  eternity,  we  are  of  an  eternal  and  indestructible  essence; 
or,  in  other  words,  that  being  incarnate  portions  of  the 
Deity  (as  Plato  supposes),  we  are  as  immortal  as  himself. 
But  if  the  poet  intends  to  affirm  this,  do  you  not  perceive 
that  he  frustrates  his  own  aim  '.'  For  if  we  are  of  God's 
indivisible  essence,  and  receive  our  separate  consciousness 
from  the  wall  of  flesh  which,  at  our  birth,  was  raised  be- 
tween us  and  the  Fount  of  Being,  we  must,  on  the  dissolu- 
tion of  the  body,  on  the  casting  down  of  the  partition,  be 
again  merged  in  the  simple  and  uncompounded  Godhead, 
lose  our  individual  consciousness,  and,  although  in  one 
sense  immortal,  yet,  in  another  sense,  become  as  though 
we  had  never  been.  If  1  were  to  speak  as  a  critic,  of  the 
whole  poem,  I  should  say  that  Wordsworth  does  not  dis- 
play in  it  any  great  clearness  of  thought,  or  felicity  of 
language.  I  grant  that  ideas,  however  well  expressed, 
may  possibly  be  so  abstruse  as  to  present  difficulties  to  the 
ordinary  reader  ;  but  the  ode  in  question  is  not  so  much 
abstruse  in  idea  as  crabbed  in  expression.  There  appears 
to  be  a  laborious  toiling  after  originality,  ending  in  a  dismal 
want  of  harmony.  With  a  dithyrambic  irregularity  of 
construction,  which  ought  to  have  afTurdcd  the  poet  full 
scope  for  varied  music,  there  exists  a  break-toolh  rugged- 
ncss  of  versification — the  general  characteristic  of  Words- 
worth's attempts  at  mysterious  loftiness.  Melodious  as  he 
is  in  his  simpler  movements,  the  jerks  and  jumbles  of  his 
more  ambitious  style  are  truly  astonishing.     Mis  sublimity 


274  -Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

seems,  like  the  burden  of  Sisyphus,  pushed  hard  up  hill, 
only  to  rumble  back  to  the  plain.  In  one  instance  we  find 
a  line  of  four  syllables  succeeded  by  a  super-Alexandrine 
of  fourteen.  ■» 

'  Thou  child  of  joy, 
Shout  round  me — let  me  hear  thy  shouts,  thou  happy  shepherd 
boy  1" 

The  rhymes  are  inartificial,  and  indeed  incorrect,  to  a  de- 
gree which  would  appear  to  indicate  cither  a  want  of  ear, 
or  a  deficiency  of  skill  in  the  poet  ;  and  which  would  for 
ever  forbid  the  ode  from  ranking  with  the  great  lyrical 
models  in  our  language.     Witness — 

'  Oh  evil  day,  if  I  were  sullen 
While  the  earth  herself  is  adorning 
This  sweet  May  morning', 
And  the  children  are  'pulling,''  &c. 

And  again, 

'  Not  in  cr\\J\YC  forgetfulness, 
And  not  in  utter  nakedness, 
But  trailing  clouds  of  glory,  do  we  come 
From  God,  who  is  our  home.'' 

In  a  composition  of  high  pretensions,  such  careless  and 
brief  numbers  as  these, 

'  A  wedding  or  a  festival, 
A  mourning  or  a  funeral ;' 

'  As  if  his  whole  vocation 
Were  endless  imitation  ;' 

together  with  the  perpetual  introduction  of  the  expletives 
'did,'  and  'do,'  produce  the  same  unhapp}^  efiect  as  a 
dancer  in  a  minuet  tumbling  head  over  heels.  But  I  have 
too  long  suspended  the  conclusion  of  the  ode,  which  is 
beautiful,  and  sufiiciently  attests  the  superiority  of  Words- 
worth's natural,  over  his  artificial  style.  What  can  be 
more  noble  than  the  following  lines?  They  must  find 
an  echo  in  every  human  breast. 


WORDSWORTH.  275 

'  What  though  the  radiance,  which  was  once  so  bright, 
Be  now  for  ever  taken  from  my  sight, 
Tliouijh  notiiing  can  bring  back  the  liour 
Of  splendour  in  the  grass,  of  glory  in  the  flower; 

We  will  grieve  not,  rather  fmd 

Strength  in  what  remains  behind. 

In  the  primal  sympathy, 

Which  having  been  must  ever  be, 

In  the  soothing  thoughts  that  spring 

Out  of  human  suffering. 

In  the  faith,  that  looks  through  death, 
In  years  that  bring  the  pliilosophic  mind.'  " 

"  Well,"  exclaimed  the  Wordsworthian  "  who  would 
have  thought  that  you^  of  all  persons  in  the  world,  knew 
Wordsworth  by  heart?" — "I  have  derived  as  great  plea- 
sure," replied  the  sceptic,  "  from  the  best  part  of  his 
works,  as  I  have  received  pain  from  the  worst."  The 
ode  was  then  finished  without  farther  interruption,  and  the 
party  dispersed  ;  but  not  before  the  good  dull  neutral  had 
petitioned  for  the  loan  of  the  book,  that  he  might  study  at 
leisure  that  sublime  passage  about  "  the  mighty  waters 
rolling  evermore." 

It  may  be  expected  that  I  should  not  pass  by  in  silence 
the  poem  which  some  persons  consider  Wordsworth's  best 
— the  Excursion.  It  is  certainly  the  most  ambitious  of  his 
productions,  and  by  its  length  seems  to  claim  an  import- 
ance, not  possessed  by  his  shorter  pieces.  But  while  I 
acknowledge  that  there  are  exquisitely  beautiful  passages 
in  the  Excursion  (and  perhaps  none  more  so  than  that 
which  the  Edinburgh  Review  extracted  for  reprobation, 
beginning — 

"  Oh  then  what  soul  was  his,  when,  on  the  tops 
Of  the  high  mountains,  he  beheld  the  sun 
Rise  up  and  bathe  tiie  world  in  light!") 

.  P.  13,  8vo.  ed. 

— while  I  reverence  the  [)urity  of  intention,  and  devotional 
love  of  nature,  which  it  displays,  I  cannot  but  consider 
that  the  ground-work  is  a  mistake,  and  the  execution,  on 
the  whole,  a  failure.  As  this  poem  is  the  most  bulky 
which  Wordsworth  has    published,  so  it   displays   on    a 


276  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

larger  scale,  the  errors  produced  by  his  erroneous  theory. 
By  tying  himself  down  to  humble  life,  the  author  has  in- 
volved himself  in  a  net  of  contradictions  ;  for  his  system 
bound  him  to  choose  a  hero  of  lowly  birth  and  breeding, 
yet  his  purpose  demanded  that  he  should  make  that  hero 
the  mouth-piece  of  the  profoundest  philosophical  reflections. 
He  was  also,  by  the  plan  of  his  poem,  constrained  to  give 
a  vagabond  existence  to  the  principal  personage,  whose 
unity  of  presence  was  to  connect  the  scattered  thoughts, 
scenes,  and  histories,  into  one ;  therefore  he  does  not  hesi- 
tate boldly  to  shock  our  poetical  associations,  by  choosing 
a  pedlar  for  the  hero  of  the  Excursion.  Whether  he  has 
been  more  especially  mistaken  in  selecting  a  man  of  this 
judaical  trade — the  very  mention  of  which  brings  a  black 
beard,  a  mahogany  box,  garters,  tapes,  and  tin  trays  be- 
fore the  eye — I  will  not  pause  to  inquire;  but,  "taking 
up  the  question  on  general  grounds,"  1  may  observe,  that 
to  make  any  man  in  low  life  the  repository  of  such  senti- 
ments, as  a  high-gifted  individual  alone  could  be  supposed 
to  entertain,  is  extremely  injudicious  ;  because  probability 
is  violated,  and  probability  is  the  soul  of  that  pleasure 
which  we  receive  from  fictitious  incident  or  dialogue.  If 
a  Burns,  or  a  Chatterton,  be  a  miracle,  a  production  of 
nature  out  of  the  ordinary  course  of  her  creation  ;  if  by 
'posaibility ,  once  in  a  century,  a  low-born  man  reaches  to 
high  attainments  by  native  vigour  of  intellect — why  choose 
the  solitary  instance  on  which  to  found  a  poem  of  human 
interest — why  make  a  pedlar  utter  reflections  which  are 
only  to  be  found  in  the  mind  of  a  Wordsworth?  For 
instance;  (I  quote  ad  ajjcrturam  libri;) 

"  Powers  depart, 
The  gray-lmWd  wanderer  steaxJfaslly  replied, 
Possef:sions  vanisli,  and  opinions  chan<>e, 
And  ])assions  hold  a  fluctuating  seat; 
But  by  llie  .storms  of  circumstance  unshaken, 
And  subject  neither  to  eclipse  or  wane, 
Duty  exists; — immutably  survive. 
For  our  support,  tiic  measures  and  tlie  forms, 
Which  an  abstract  intelligence  supplies, 
Whose  kingdom  is  where  time  and  spiice  are  not." 


WORDSWORTH.  277 

Is  it  likely,  that  the  samo  voice,  which  asks  a  farmer's 
wife  to  buy  a  piece  of  bobbin,  should  pronounce  a  speech 
like  the  foregoing  ? 

The  language  also  of  the  Excursion,  as  being  more 
strictly  in  accordance  with  that  part  of  Wordsworth's 
theory  which  identifies  verse  with  prose,  is  generally  harsh 
and  dragging,  full  of  long  unimaginative,  and,  (if  I  may 
use  the  expression,)  tnaihcmaiical  words.    For  instance-r- 

"  Of  rustic  parents  bred,  he  had  been  train'd 
(So  prompted  their  aspiring  wish)  to  skill 
In  numbers,  and  the  sedentary  art 
Of  penmanship, — with  pride  profess'd,  and  taught 
By  his  endeavours  in  tjie  mountain  dales. 
Now,  those  sad  tidings  weighing  on  liis  heart, 
To  books,  and  papers,  and  the  studious  desk 
Ho  stoutly  readdress'd  himself." 

What  art,  I  would  ask,  can  render  such  words  as  "  se- 
dentary," and  "  penmanship"  poetical  ?  The  mind  has 
been  too  much  accustomed  to  them,  in  its  prosaic  moods, 
to  feel  them  so.  This  is  blank  verse  indeed  !  "  The  con- 
tinual and  regular  impulses  of  pleasurable  surprise  from 
the  metrical  arrangement"  of  which  Wordsworth  speaks, 
are  as  though  they  were  not  in  such  metre  as  this.  I 
would  undertake  to  read  many  a  page  of  this  poem  with- 
out being  convicted  of  poetry — that  is,  if  I  read  it  in  the 
usual  mode  of  recitation ;  but  give  it  to  a  Wordsworthian, 
and  he  perhaps,  by  the  alchemy  of  his  voice,  would  con- 
vert it  into  numbers.  If  Wordsworth  recites  poetry  in 
the  same  style  as  his  admirers,  I  can  easily  imagine  how 
it  is  that  the  prosaic  seems  to  him  the  poetical, — the  lu- 
dicrous, the  sublime  ;  for  they  repeat  the  tale  of  Goody 
Blake  with  the  same  good  emphasis  and  discretion  where- 
with they  say  or  sing  a  passage  from  the  Excursion.  Their 
monotone  levels  all  distinctions,  and  would  make  the  most 
laughable  comedy  in  the  world  a  very  tragic  performance. 
But  an  ordinary  reader  must  regret  that  Mr.  Wordsworth 
should  have  given  himself  the  trouble  to  arrange  a  great 
part  of  the  Excursion  in  lines  of  ten  syllables ;  lor,  as  far 
as  regards  effect,  the  pleasure  of  the  ear  is  lost.  The 
most  fatal  fault  of  the  Excursion  is  that  it  is  too  long.     I 

VOL.  I.  24 


278  Wilson's  miscellaneous  avritings. 

do  not  mean  in  respect  to  quantity,  (for  I  have  heard  a 
longer  sermon  of  fifteen  minutes  than  one  of  fifty,)  but 
long  in  respect  to  the  quantity  of  idea  spread  over  a  sur- 
face of  words.  Every  thing  is  long  in  it,  the  similes,  the 
stories,  the  speeches,  the  words,  the  sentences  (which  are 
indeed  of  a  breathless  length), — and  yet,  awful  to  relate, 
it  is  only  the  third  part  "  of  a  long  and  laborious  work  !" 

But  it  may  still  be  urged,  by  those  who  consider  Words- 
worth a  \ioci  o'i  first-rate  merit  and  originality,  that  the 
force  of  his  genius  has  been  demonstrated  by  its  etlects 
upon  the  taste  and  literature  of  the  age.  They  may  boast 
that  he  brought  back  the  public  mind  from  a  love  of  false 
glare  and  glitter,  to  the  simplicity  and  truth  of  nature. 

He  himself  says,  after  a  retrospective  view  of  diflerent 
eras  of  literature,  "It  may  be  asked,  where  lies  the  par- 
ticular relation  of  what  has  been  said  to  these  volumes? 
The  question  will  be  easily  answered  by  the  discerning 
reader,  who  is  old  enough  to  remember  the  taste  that  pre- 
vailed when  some  of  these  poems  were  first  published, 
seventeen  years  ago,  who  has  also  observed  to  what  de- 
gree the  poetry  of  this  island  has  since  that  jyeriod  heen  co- 
loured by  them.'''' 

That  the  taste  of  the  age,  about  the  period  when  Words- 
worth published  his  first  poems,  was  far  gone  from  nature, 
I  allows  I  grant  that  (to  use  Wordsworth's  own  words) 
"the  invaluable  works  of  our  elder  writers  were  driven 
into  neglect  by  frantic  novels,  sickly  and  stupid  German 
tragedies,  and  deluges  of  idle  and  extravagant  stories  in 
verse,"  and  I  honour  the  attempt  to  restore  a  healthier 
tone  of  feeling.  Stilt,  I  cannot  attribute  the  inevitable  re- 
ac-tion,  which  took  place  at  one  period,  to  aught  but  the 
natural  tendency  of  all  extremes  to  produce  reaction,  and 
unfortunately  again  to  verge  into  extremes.  Wordsworth 
himself  I  consider  less  a  moulding  spirit  of  the  age,  than  a 
perverted  production  of  it.  He  began  to  write  at  the  era 
when  men  were  wearied  with  perpetual  stimulants,  and 
disgusted  with  copies  of  copies  ad  infinitum.  Thomson, 
in  his  Seasons,  had  already  dared  to  use  nothing  but  a 
pencil  and  a  pallet,  and  his  own  eyes,  in  delineating  nature  ; 
Burns  had  presented  her  to  the  world  in  her  sweetest,  her 
freshest,  her  simplest  attire :  and  Wordsworth  went  a  step 


WORDSWORTH.  279 

farther, — ho  stripped  her  naked.     Yet  his  roUowcrs  have 
been  fow.     The  master-spirits  of  an  age  have  always  had 
their  imitators,  and  have  given  somewhat  of  an  abiding 
character  to  the  literature  of  a  whole  century.     But  who 
has  imitated  Wordsworth'.'     Where  is  the  stamp  and  im- 
press of  his  mind  to  be  found  in  this  generation  1     Sim- 
plicity  has   again  lost    ber   charms  for  the  public  taste. 
Nature,   indeed,    is    still   worshipped,  but  it  is  nature  in 
frenzy  and  distortion.     Alas  !  that  evil  should  be  so  much 
more  enduring  and  energetic  than  good  !     If  Wordsworth 
cannot  justly  be  ranked  (as  his  worshippers  rank  him)  the 
first  genius  of  the  age,  still,  his  lower  station  on  the  fair 
hill  of  virtue  is  more  enviable  than  that  of  others  on  the 
lightning-shattered  pinnacle  of  vice.     And,  if  Wordsworth 
would  be  contented  to  occupy  that  more  lovely  station  grace- 
fully and  meekly,  there  would  be  no  dissentient  voice  to  dis- 
pute his  honours.     But  he  has  yet  to  learn  the  important 
lesson  of  remaining  silent  under  evil  report  and  good  report. 
Why,  if  W^ordsworth  so  implicitly  believes  in  the  justice 
of"  Time  the  corrector,  where  our  judgments  err;"  why, 
if  he  is  so  steadfastly  assured  that  the  "  great  spirit   of 
human  knowledge,"  moving  on  the  wings  of  the  past  and 
the  future,  will  assign  him  his  proper  station  in  the  ranks 
of  literature;  why,   if  he  is   persuaded  that  his  volumes, 
"  both  in  words  and  things,  will  operate  in  their  degree  to 
extend    the    domain    of  sensibility,    for    the    delight,   the 
honour,  and  the  benefit  of  human  nature," — why  does  he 
write  so  many  pages  io  jJ^'ove  the  truth  of  his  convictions? 
Can  he  talk  himself  into  immortality  ?     Self-praise  is,  of 
all  modes  of  self-aggrandisement,  the  least  graceful,  and 
the   most  impolitic.     Why   should   we   give    a  man  that 
which  he  has  already  bestowed  on  himself?     And,  if  we 
think    that   the  self-eulogist  claims  too  great   a  share  of 
merit,  human  nature  is  up  in  arms  to  dispute  with  him 
every  inch  of  his   overgrown   territory.     W^hat  shall    we 
say  to  a  poet  who  thus  writes  of  his  own  works  ]     He  first 
notices,  that   "  after  the  transgression  of  Adam,  Milton, 
with  other  appearances  of  sympathising  nature,  thus  marks 
the  immediate  consequence  : 

'  Sky  lovver'd,  and,  muttering  thunder,  some  sad  drops 
Wept  at  completion  of  the  mortal  sin.'  " 


280  Wilson's  miscellaneous  wkitings. 

And  then,  a  little  while  after,  he  goes  on  to  say,  "  Awe- 
stricken  as  I  am  by  contem[)Iating  the  operations  of  the 
mind  of  this  truly  divine  poet,  I  scarcely  dare  venture  to 
add,  that  '  An  Address  to  an  Infant  !  !  !'  which  the  reader 
will  find  under  the  class  of  Fancy  in  the  present  volumes, 
exhibits  something  of  this  communion  and  interchange," 
&c.  Yet  awe-stricken  as  Wordsworth  says  he  is  in  the 
contemplation  of  Milton's  mind,  he  docs  not  scruple  to 
parody  Milton's  sonnet,  beginning  "  A  book  was  writ  of 
late  call'd  Tetrachordon,"  by  one  beginning  "  A  book  was 
writ  of  late  call'd  Peter  Bell."  He  should  have  remem- 
bered  that  Milton  never  wrote  a  line  in  defence  of  his 
2)0cms,  as  indeed  a  person's  own  poetry  is  no  fit  subject  for 
polemics  :  and  while  assimilating  himself  (in  kind,  if  not 
in  degree)  to  Shakspeare,  he  should  have  taken  a  lesson 
from  the  silent  grandeur  with  which  the  latter  gave  his 
works  to  posterity,  not  even  keeping  a  copy  of  those  writ- 
ings, which  he  knew  "  the  world  would  not  willingly  let 
die."  He  should  have  reflected  that  true  power  is  calm. 
Indeed,  were  I  not  disposed  to  estimate  Wordsworth's 
powers  very  highly,  I  should  almost  draw  an  argument 
against  them  from  the  tone  of  self-exaltation  which  pervades 
his  prose  writings.  To  be  dissatisfied  with  its  own  produc- 
tions, is  the  most  usual  temper  of  a  mighty  mind  that  sees 
before  it  "  the  unreached  paradise  of  its  despair."  Virgil 
condemned  his  yEneid,  the  delight  of  after  ages,  to  the 
flames ;  and  Collins,  with  his  own  hands,  burnt  the  unsold 
edition  of  his  poems.  Wordsworth,  however,  need  not 
fear.  The  uneasy  doubts,  respecting  his  real  title  to  im- 
mortal fame,  which  his  very  restlessness  and  irritability 
betray,  are  groundless.  Ho  must  survive.  But,  in  the 
mean  time,  he  must  allow  the  present  generation  to  be  a 
little  amused,  when  they  meet  in  his  works  with  such  a 
passage  as  the  following: — "  Whither,  then,  shall  we  turn 
for  that  union  of  qualifications  which  must  necessarily 
exist  l)efore  the  decisions  of  a  critic  can  be  of  absolute 
value  1  for  a  mind  at  once  poetical  and  philosophical ;  for 
a  critic  whose  aflections  are  as  free  and  kindly  as  the 
spirit  of  society,  and  whose  understanding  is  severe  as 
that  of  dispassionate  government  l  Where  are  we  to  look 
for  that  initiatory  composure  of  mind  which  no  selfishness 


WORDSWOKTU.  281 

can  disturb?  lor  a  natural  sensibility  that  has  been  tutored 
into  correctness,  without  losing  any  thing  of  its  quietness, 

&c associated  with  a  judgment  that  cannot  be  duped 

into  admiration  by  aught  that  is  unworthy  of  it  ?"  And 
he  then  answers  his  own  interrogatories  : — "  Among  those, 
and  those  only,  who  never  having  suffered  their  youthlul 
love  of  poetry  to  remit  much  of  its  force,  have  applied  to 
the  consideration  of  the  laws  of  this  art,  the  best  power  of 
their  understandings."  And  does  not  Mr.  Wordsworth 
consider  himself  to  possess  these  qualifications?  Is  he  not 
to  be  found  amongst  this  elect  band  of  critics  ?  Can  he 
not,  therefore,  criticise  his  own  works  better  than  any 
exoteric  ?  This  spirit  of  self-admiration  has  made  Words- 
worth overrate  the  cfiects  which  his  poetry  has  produced 
on  the  age.  He  mistakes  the  clamour  of  a  party  for  the 
voice  of  a  multitude.  He  says,  "  A  sketch  of  my  own 
notion  of  the  constitution  of  fame  has  been  given  ;  and,  as 
far  as  concerns  myself,  I  have  cause  to  be  satisfied.  The 
love,  the  admiration,  the  indifference,  the  slight,  the  aver- 
sion, and  even  the  contempt,  with  which  these  poems  have 
been  received,  knowing,  as  I  do,  the  source,  within  my 
own  mind,  from  which  they  have  proceeded,  and  the 
labour  and  pains  which,  when  labour  and  pains  appeared 
needful,  have  been  bestowed  upon  them,  &c.,  &c.,  .... 
are  all  proofs  that  for  the  present  time  I  have  not  laboured 
in  vain  ;  and  afford  assurances,  more  or  less  authentic, 
that  the  products  of  my  industry  will  endure."  Words- 
worth forgets  that  this  theory  and  his  poems  have  been 
made  a  party  question,  and  that  he  has  perhaps  more  ex- 
trinsic causes  of  fame  than  any  other ;  that  his  startling 
oddities,  and  paradoxical  assertions,  are  perhaps  as  stimu- 
lating as  the  outrageous  stiinidatioii  (as  he  calls  ii)  which 
he  re[)robates.  •  Wordsworth  thinks  that  he  introduced  a 
taste  for  simplicity.  If  so,  he  introduced  a  taste  most 
hostile  to  an  admiration  of  his  own  writings,  for  he  is  any 
thing  but  simple.  He  is  grotesque,  which  is  quite  oppo- 
site to  being  simple.  His  very  attempt  to  clothe  lofty  sen- 
timents in  lowly  language  betrays  the  greatest  eccentricity. 
If  a  king  wore  a  shepherd's  frock,  he  would  manifest  more 
ambitious  singularity  than  were  he  dressed  in  purple.  In- 
consistency and  strangeness  have  been  the  very  steps  by 


282  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

which  Wordsworth  has  mounted  into  notice.  Even  were 
it  granted  that  he  had  i/iJli(C7iccd  the  taste  of  the  age,  it  by- 
no  means  follows  that  his  influence  has  been  hevejicial. 
He  talks  of  the  "  strange  abuses  which  poets  have  intro- 
duced into  their  language,  till  they  and  their  readers  take 
them  as  matters  of  course,  if  they  do  not  single  them  out 
expressly  as  objects  of  admiration."  Even  if  he  have 
abolished  these,  what  does  he  gain  if  he  replaces  one  form 
of  abuses  by  another  form  of  abuses,  till  his  readers  take 
them  as  matters  of  course,  and  most  certainly  do  often 
single  them  out  expressly  as  objects  of  admiration '/" 

Wordsworth's  love  of  singularity  is  such,  that  he  will 
ijot  even  publish  his  poems  in  the  ordinary  form — but 
must  classify  them  under  the  heads  of  "  Poems  founded  on 
the  Affections" — "  Poems  of  the  Fancy" — "  Poems  of  the 
Imagination,"  &c.  When  they  first  made  their  appear- 
ance, they  were  not  divided  according  to  any  arrangement 
of  the  kind  ;  therefore  it  seems  that  this  ingenious  classifi- 
cation was  an  after-thought — still  farther  (it  might  be)  to 
separate  them  from  the  herd  of  common  poems.  One 
word  upon  the  term  "  Poems  of  the  Imagination."  It 
appears  to  me  greatly  too  vague  for  the  use  of  such  a 
philosophical  writer  as  Wordsworth,  whom  his  partisans 
laud  as  almost  the  founder  of  a  pure  philosophical  lan- 
guage. He  says  that  "  poems,  apparently  miscellaneous, 
may  with  propriety  be  arranged  either  with  reference  to 
the  powers  of  mind  ivcdominant  in  the  production  of  them, 
or  to  the  mould  in  which  they  are  cast;  or,  lastly,  to  the 
subjects  to  which  they  relate."  Does  the  word  "of" 
express  all  this?  Does  it  comprehend  all  the  three  cases? 
To  which  head  is  the  poem  of  Goody  Blake  and  Harry  Gill 
to  be  referred?  I  suii])osc  to  the  last;  for  as  the  story 
narrated  is  a  fact,  imagination  was  not  requisite  for  the 
production  of  it,  and  as  it  is  related  in  a  plain  style,  it  is 
not  cast  in  an  imaginative  mould.  The  question  then  is, 
Does  it  relate  to  the  imagination  ?  If  we  entertain  the 
same  lofty,  and  somewhat  vague  ideas,  that  Mr.  Words- 
worth does,  of  this  power,  we  should  say  not  ;  for,  if  it  was 
imagination  that  made  Harry  Gill  cold  for  life,  it  appears 
to  bo  a  faculty  of  the  same  order,  only  more  intensely 
exhibited,  with  that  which  suiigests  the  maladies  of  a  ner- 


WORDSWORTH.  283 

vous  lady ;  and  it  is  Imrd  to  conceive  that  this  is  the 
same  power  which  dictated  the  Paradise  Lost,  and  which 
breathes  throughout  Shakspcare's  dramas.  The  main 
object  of  Harry  Gill  seems  to  be,  not  so  much  to  demon- 
strate the  power  of  the  human  imagination,  as  to  teach 
farmers  to  be  merciful ;  for  with  this  moral  the  talc  con- 
cludes— 

"  Now  think,  ye  farmers  all,  I  prav, 
Of  Goody  Blake  and  Harry  Gill!" 

This  rather  savours  of  a  post-application  to  the  theory. 
Such  expedients  as  these  to  appear  original,  and  to  excite 
attention,  may  succeed  for  a  time,  but  when  the  party 
question  has  ceased,  will  Wordsworth's  poems  ever  be 
remembered  or  admired  as  illustrations  of  a  theory,  or  as 
coming  under  the  class  of  some  predominant  power  of  the 
mind?  Let  Wordsworth  ask  himself  in  what  manner 
poetry  is  recalled  to  the  memory  of  any  person — some 
thought,  some  image  dwells  with  us,  which  some  associa- 
tion recalls  ;  and  so  far  from  stopping  to  inquire.  Does 
this  come  under  the  head  of  Fancy  or  Imagination  ?  we 
scarcely  ask  if  the  lines  are  to  be  found  in  Shakspeare, 
Dryden,  or  Pope.  Good  writing  has  but  one  mistress — 
Nature,  who  is  the  same  in  all,  however  variously  she 
may  arrange  the  folds  of  her  decorative  mantle;  and  it  is 
the  jewel  of  the  casket,  the  thought,  the  idea,  that  inward 
part  of  poetry  which  stirs  the  sources  of  reflection  in  the 
mind  it  addresses,  which  alone  is  valuable.  The  rest  is 
leather  and  prunella.  If  we  are  moved  with  the  matter  of 
a  quotation,  it  signifies  little  whether  the  manner  be  in 
accordance  with  any  particular  theory.  We  admire  it  as 
good  ^)er  se.  If  a  theory  could  make  a  poet,  might  not  all 
be  poets  1  Away,  then,  with  the  theory,  and  with  half  the 
poems  founded  on  the  theor}' — the  sister  Emmelines — the 
small  celandines,  sparrows'  eggs,  and  Mr.  Wilkinson's 
spade  into  the  bargain. 

I  have  thus  endeavoured  to  show,  that  neither  by  his 
tlieory,  nor  by  his  mode  of  illustrating  it,  can  Wordsworth 
claim  the  honours  due  to  the  first-rate  and  original  genius 
— that  he  has  not  done  any  thing  better  than  it  has  been 
done  by  others.     If  we  were  fully  to  admit  his  own  test  of 


284  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

genius, — namely,  "  the  art  of  doing  well  what  is  worthy  to 
be  done,  and  what  was  never  done  before^'' — we  should 
deny  that  Wordsworth  has  any  genius  at  all.  It  is  true 
that  he  has  frequently  "  done  well  what  is  worthy  to  be 
done ;"  but  he  has  noL  accomplished  what  "  was  never 
done  before."  Even  timongst  writers  of  our  own  day,  he 
does  not  stand  alone.  In  the  choice  of  humble  themes,  he 
has  a  formidable  competitor  in  Crabbe ;  in  narrative,  he  is 
rivalled  by  Scott  and  Southey  ;  in  impassioned  grandeur, 
by  Byron  ;  and  (if  we  look  a  little  farther  back)  in  philo- 
sophy, by  Akenside.  Yet  I  am  far  from  denying  that 
Wordsworth  has  genius.  In  my  opinion,  the  art  of  doing 
well  what  is  worthy  to  be  done,  is  of  itself  a  sufficient 
proof  of  genius.  Virgil  has  followed  Homer  in  the  man- 
agement and  conduct  of  his  great  heroic  poem ;  yet  who 
will  assert  that  Virgil  has  no  genius?  I  am  rather  dis- 
posed to  adopt  Madame  de  Stael's  definit;ion  of  this  subtle 
essence,  namely,  "  enthusiasm  acting  upon  talent ;"  and  I 
conceive,  that  if  a  thing  be  good  of  its  kind,  it  may  mani- 
fest genius,  even  though  its  prototype  should  exist.  An 
author  of  the  highest  order  indeed,  such  as  Homer,  Shak- 
speare,  Dante,  is  necessarily  the  founder  of  his  class;  but 
a  man  may  be  a  fine  writer,  who,  to  whatever  class  he 
may  be  referred,  can  be  esteemed  for  his  fine  writing  alone. 
Now,  I  do  not  think  that  Wordsworth  is  first  of  any  class  ; 
but  I  do  think  that  he  excels  sufiiiciently  in  what  belongs 
to  two  or  three  classes,  to  be  entitled  (if  we  look  to  his 
best  performances)  even  a  great  writer.  • 

One  fatal  bar  to  Wordsworth's  elevation  in  the  ranks  of 
poetry  is,  that  (to  speak  properly)  he  has  no  style  of  his 
own.  This  assertion  may  surprise  both  his  admirers  and 
non-admirers,  each  of  whom  may  have  mistaken  certain 
peculiarities  of  diction  for  a  style  of  composition.  That 
even  these  peculiarities  are  assumed,  and  do  not  result 
from  an  inherent  originality  of  constitution,  is  evident 
from  his  two  earliest  poems,  namely,  the  "  Evening 
Walk,"  and  "  Descriptive  Sketches,"  which  were  pub- 
lished by  themselves  before  the  appearance  of  the  "  Lyri- 
cal Ballads;"  and  which  are  given  entire  in  the  later 
edition  of  his  works.  In  these  poems,  Wordsworth  pur- 
sues the  beaten  track,  adapts  the  good  old  Popcan  metre. 


WORDSWORTH.  285 

and  most  approved  cadence,  and  raises  the  whole  compo- 
sition upon  the  stilts  of  poetic  diction — his  present  horror. 
He  represents  himself  as  wandering 

"  His  wizard  course  where  hoary  Derwent  takes 
Through  crags,  and  forest  glooms,  and  opening  lakes ;" 

and  depicts  scenes, 

"  Where,  all  unshaded,  blazing  forests  throw 
Rich  golden  verdure  on  the  waves  below;" 

and  where,  moreover, 

"  Soft  bosoms  breathe  around  contagious  sighs, 
And  amorous  music  on  the  water  dies." 

These   poems  indeed   show  talent,   and  contain  some 
beautiful  lines, — as,  for  example, 

"  In  thoughtless  gaiety  I  coursed  the  plain, 
And  hope  itself  was  all  I  knew  of  fain.'''' 

And  in  a  comparison  of  life  to  a  sun-dial,  he  even  finely 
says, 

"  We  know  but  from  its  shade  the  present  hour  ;" 

but  the  greater  part  of  these  productions  is  written  in  a 
style  of  vicious  ornament,  and  most  commonplace  diction. 
We  find  "  angelic  moods,"  "  ruthless  ministers,"  and 
"  cegis  orbs."  I  shall  be  told,  perhaps,  that  Wordsworth 
was  a  very  young  man  when  he  wrote  thus,  and  that  his 
present  style  is  the  adoption  of  his  maturer  judgment.  It 
is  the  very  circumstance  of  his  having  adopted  a  style, 
which  makes  me  say  that  he  has  no  style  of  his  own. 
The  early  productions  of  our  greatest  poets  (as  far  as  they 
are  preserved  to  us)  differ  only  in  degree,  not  in  kind, 
from  their  after  works.  II  Penseroso  has  Milton's  stamp 
upon  it,  and  in  Comus  (as  Dr.  Johnson  observes)  may 
plainly  be  discerned  the  dawn  of"  Paradise  Lost."  Pope's 
"  Pastorals"  have  the  same  cadence  and  method  of  expres- 
sion which  his  maturer  works  exhibit.  Shakspeare's  early 
poems  and  sonnets  are  marked  by  his  peculiar  turn  of 


286  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

language,  and  possess  a  singularly  dramatic  character. 
These  great  masters  never  sat  down  to  adopt  a  fixed  style 
of  composition.  It  was  their  minds  which  made  their 
language,  afterwards  indeed  pruned  by  experience,  and 
ripened  by  the  summer  of  their  intellect ;  but  the  fruit  had 
a  sharp  and  native  flavour  long  "  before  the  mellowing 
year."  That  which  was  said  by  Wordsworth  relative  to 
the  connexion  between  youth  and  age,  may  be  truly 
affirmed  of  their  style — "  the  child  is  father  of  the 
man."  But  between  the  Wordsworth  of  the  "  Descriptive 
Sketches,"  and  the  Wordsworth  of  the  "  Lyrical  Ballads," 
there  exists  no  link  of  union.  At  one  leap,  he  passed 
from  the  extreme  of  melodious  ornament  to  the  extreme  of 
harsh  simplicity  ;  and  by  the  rapidity  of  the  transition 
proved  that  he  possessed  no  native  originality  of  expres- 
sion. His  early  poems  were  imitations  of  Pope  and 
Darwin  ;  his  succeeding  compositions  were  imitations  of 
"  Percy's  Relics  of  Ancient  English  Poetry  ;"  in  his  son- 
nets he  has  imitated  Milton ;  in  his  inscriptions,  Akenside. 
If  we  admit,  for  the  sake  of  argument,  that  his  song  pos- 
sesses any  native  note,  where  shall  we  discover  it,  if  not 
in.  his  earliest  warblings?  We  must  turn  from  the  in- 
structed cadences  of  the  bulfinch  to  the  first  trill  which 
came  fresh  from  the  teaching  of  nature.  If,  then,  Words- 
worth's first  style  was  his  truest,  his  subsequent  manner 
could  not  possibly  have  been  natural  to  him  ;  and,  if  not 
natural,  how  could  it  fulfil  the  conditions  of  his  own 
theory,  how  could  it  make  good  his  pretensions  to  convey 
simple  thoughts  in  natural  language?  What  can  be  native 
but  that  which  flows  from  nature  ?  Our  poet  too  visibly 
displays  the  ropes,  wheels,  and  pulleys,  whereby  he  sets 
his  machinery  in  motion,  when  he  says  that  he  has  taken 
"  as  much  ^:'(7i;;5  to  avoid  poetic  diction,  as  others  ordi- 
narily take  to  produce  it;"  or  when  he  talks  of  '■'■pro- 
cesses of  creation,  or  composition,  governed  by  certain 
fixed  laivs.''''     Perhaps  (and   1   can    easily   believe    it)  he 

found  it  difficult  to  write  so  ill It  is  rather 

singular  that  Wordsworth's  later  poems  have  sided  round 
to  the  opinion  of  the  world,  and  that  they  approach  nearer 
in  style  to  his  early  productions.  They  are  less  startling, 
less  incongruous, — more  ornate,  inore  latinized  than  those 


WORDSWORTH.  287 

in  his  middle  manner.  He  goes  so  far  as  to  commence  a 
sonnet  with, 

"  Chang-e  me,  ye  gods,  into  some  breathing  rose, 
The  love-sick  stripling  fancifully  cries ;" 

and  he  has  (as  he  once  phrased  it)  stooioed  to  accommodate 
himself  to  public  opinion  so  much  as  to  omit  several  stan- 
zas, and  even  whole  poems,  which  had  excited  more  ani- 
madversion than  others.  By  this  temporizing  conduct,  he 
has  even  ofiended  his  worshippers,  many  of  whom  have 
regretted,  in  my  hearing,  the  absence  of  the  Wordsworthian 
peculiarities  from  his  later  strains,  and  the  consequent 
decline  of  his  genius.  If  his  genius  consisted  in  these  pe- 
culiarities, what  sort  of  a  genius  must  it  have  been?  The 
truth  is,  that  the  spring  of  Wordsworth's  poetical  conduct 
has  ever  been  the  love  of  popularity — ay,  let  his  admirers 
start,  and  the  poet  be  ever  so  voluble,  I  repeat,  of  popularity. 
And  a  very  rational  incentive  it  is  :  it  only  becomes  ridicu- 
lous when  loudly  disavowed.  Wordsworth  sought  popu- 
larity, in  his  first  publication,  by  accommodating  his  style 
to  the  then  prevailing  taste.  This  gained  him  nothing. 
He  was  overlooked  amongst  the  multitude  of  conformists. 
He  then  bore  boldly  up  against  general  opinion,  raised  up 
a  host  of  haters,  and  consequently  another  host  of  defen- 
ders, and  chafed  himself  into  notice,  even  as  an  uprooted 
tree,  while  it  floats  down  the  stream,  raises  no  disturbance 
in  the  water,  but  when  it  stops  short  against  the  bank, 
throws  up  a  dash  of  foam  and  sparkles.  At  present,  since 
the  human  mind  must  ever  be  uneasy,  while  even  one 
Mordecai  sits  in  the  gate,  his  object  is  to  conciliate  his 
literary  enemies,  yet  still  to  retain  his  literary  friends — an 
object,  I  fear,  unattainable.  Thus,  I  repeat,  governed  by 
any  impulse  rather  than  that  of  his  own  mind,  Wordsworth 
has  no  settled  style,  no  native  peculiarity  of  expression. 
A  line  quoted  from  Shakspearc  hath  the  image  and  super- 
scription on  it.  Milton's  autograph  is  not  more  decided 
than  the  poetry  it  conveys ;  but  read  to  any  one,  not 
acquainted  with  Wordsworth's  writings,  his  early  poems — 
his  Betty  Foy,  his  Laodamia,  one  of  his  sonnets,  and  a 
passage  from  the  Excursion — would  the  auditor  conjecture 


288  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

that  they  were  written  by  one  and  the  same  person?  You 
may  urge  that  this  variety  of  style  shows  great  versatility 
of  talent.  Possibly  so,  but  versatility  itself  is  a  proof  of 
lightness  rather  than  of  strength:  an  intellectual  gladiator 
will  not  be  an  intellectual  athlete.  Wordsworth  has  frit- 
tered away  his  undoubtedly  great  powers  by  trying  many 
styles  and  "  experiments"  in  literature. 

The  last  reason  which  I  shall  assign  for  my  denying 
Wordsworth's  supremacy  is — the  extreme  inequality  of  his 
writings.  By  inequality,  I  do  not  mean  the  defects  inci- 
dent to  all  human  composition,  or  the  judicious  neglect  by 
which  certain  parts  of  a  poem  arc  left  less  laboured  than 
others — I  mean  an  inequality  almost  peculiar  to  Words- 
worth, and  greatly  resulting  from  the  tendency,  which  I 
before  noticed,  of  his  mind,  to  view  all  things,  great  and 
small,  on  a  level  of  equal  importance.  From  this  dispro- 
portionate mode  of  observing  objects,  arises  an  extreme 
minuteness  in  depicting  them: 

"  Nothing  is  left  out,  much  less  forgot;" 

and  on  this  account  it  is  that  we  read  Wordsworth's  most 
beautiful  passages  in  fear  and  trembling,  for  we  can  never 
be  certain  that  the  next  stroke  of  his  pen  may  not  hurl  us 
at  once  from  the  eminence  to  which  we  had  risen.  From 
the  aflecting  story  of  a  mourner,  we  are  snatched  to 

"  Gooseberry  trees  that  shot  in  long  lank  slips, 
Or  currants  hanging  from  the  leafless  steins, 
In  scanty  strings  ;" — Excursion. 

from  the  solemn  contemplation  of  a  funeral,  to 

"  A  work  in  the  French  tongue,  a  novel  of  Voltaire;" 

Excursion. 

Wc  read  such  touching  lines  as  tlic  following: 

"  Beside  yon  spring  I  stood, 
And  eyed  its  waters  till  we  seemed  to  feel 
One  sadness  they  and  I.     For  thorn  a  bond 
Of  brotherhood  is  broken:  time  has  been, 
When,  every  day,  the  touch  of  human  hand 


WORDSWORTH.  289 

Dislodged  tlie  natural  sleep  that  binds  them  up 
In  mortal  stillness,  tind  tiiey  ininister'd 
To  human  comfort;" 

and  immediately  we  are  hurried  away  to 

"The  useless  fragment  of  a  wooden  bowl, 
Green  with  the  moss  of  years — a  pensive  sight !" 

Thus,  by  going  one  step  too  far,  Wordsworth  loses  all  Ihe 
groimd  which  he  had  previously  gained.  He  so  nakedly 
exhibits  objects  over  which  the  decent  veil  should  be 
drawn  ;  he  brings  into  such  unhappy  prominence  the  minor 
parts  of  a  picture,  that  he  leaves  nothing  to  the  imagina- 
tion, which,  if  allowed  more  play,  would  suggest  to  itself, 
in  its  own  beautiful  light,  those  very  adjuncts  to  the  scene, 
which,  when  put  into  words,  only  offend  its  delicate  per- 
ceptions. The  lonely  spring  had  no  need  of  the  wooden 
bowl  to  make  its  loneliness  be  felt.  The  "  fragment"  was 
in  every  way  "  useless."  This  is  what  Delille  calls 
'<  peindre  les  ongles."  I  have  always  regretted  that  one 
of  Wordsword's  most  beautiful  small  poems  should  exhibit, 
in  two  places^  this  faulty  mode  of  description. 

"  I  met  Louisa  in  the  shade, 
And,  having  seen  that  lovely  maid, 

Why  should  I  fear  to  say 
That  she  is  rmldij,  fleet,  and  strong. 
And  down  the  rocks  can  leap  along 
Like  rivulets  in  May"!" 

Here  we  see  a  beautiful  image  marred  by  unlucky  associa- 
tions.    This  is  still  more  the  case  in  the  following  stanza: 

"  She  loves  her  fire,  her  cottage-home; 
Yet  o'er  the  moorland  will  she  roam 

In  weather  rough  and  bleak; 
And  when  against  the  wind  she  strains, 
Oh  miglit  I  kiss  the  mountain  rains, 

That  sparkle  on  iicr  cheek  !" 

Here,  one  of  the  most  fresh  and  animated  pictures  in 
the  whole  compass  of  English  poetry  is  blurred  by  one 
VOL.  I.  25 


290  vilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

disagreeable  expression.  Applied  to  the  movement  of 
horses,  as  in  the  triplet, 

"  Up  against  the  hill  thoy  strain — 
Tugging  at  tiic  iron  chain, 
Tugging  all  with  might  and  main," 

the  word  is  appropriate ;  but,  as  describing  the  activity  of 
a  young  and  beautiful  girl,  it  is  out  of  place;  for  Louisa, 
although  "  ruddy,  fleet,  and  strong," 

"  Hath  smiles  to  earth  unknown, 

Smiles,  that  w'ilh  motion  of  tlieir  own 

Do  spread,  and  sink,  and  rise; 
That  come  and  go  with  endless  play. 
And  ever,  as  they  pass  away, 

Are  hidden  in  her  eyes." 

The  foregoing  stanza,  which  is  perfect  both  in  thought 
and  in  expression,  makes  us  feel  how  much  we  lose  by  the 
fatal  perversity  with  which  Wordsworth  blends  the  coarse 
and  the  elegant,  the  ridiculous  and  the  sublime.  Would 
that  he  had  ^^ feared  to  saf  a  good  deal  of  what  he  has 
said  !  A  fondness  for  repetition,  not  less  than  for  ampli- 
fication, characterises  his  Muse.  For  instance,  in  the 
beginning  of  the  Excursion,  we  are  told, 

"  ]^rom  his  sixth  year,  tlie  boy  of  whom  I  speak, 
In  summer,  tended  cattle  on  the  hills;" 

and,  in  the  space  of  a  page  or  two,  this  piece  of  informa- 
tion is  repeated,  for  the  benefit  of  the  forgetful  reader ; 

"  From  early  cliildhood — even,  as  hath  been  said, 
From  his  sixth  year,  he  had  been  sent  abroad 
In  summer  to  tend  lierds." 

Weakening  what  he  thereby  vainly  endeavours  to  render 
impressive,  our  author  frequently  uses  the  prosaic  expres- 
sion, "  or  rather." 

"  The  old  inventive  poets,  had  they  seen, 
Or  rather  felt,"  &c. 

"  At  early  dawn,  or  rullvr  wlien  the  air 
Glinunera  with  fading  light,"  «!tc. 

Sonnets  on  the  Duddon. 


AVORDSWORTII.  291 

But  I  should  weary  my  reader  by  numbering  all  the 
heads  of  the  hydra  fault.  What  I  have  brought  forward 
may  suffice,  to  prove  that  Wordsworth  is  unequal,  to  a 
degree  never  yet  observed  in  any  of  the  primates  of 
poetry.  It  may  be  urged  that  we  are  too  apt  to  judge  a 
living  author  by  his  worst  productions,  while  we  judge 
him  "  centum  qui  perficit  annos"  by  his  best.  There  is 
some  truth  in  this;  but  the  best  works  of  any  established 
author  are  generally  good  throughout,  however  they  may 
have  written  unworthily  in  other  pieces ;  while  Words- 
worth's good  and  bad  are  often  so  blended,  so  identified 
even,  in  the  same  piece,  that  he  is  not  elevated  by  it  to 
the  rank  which  he  would  have  gained,  had  it  been  com- 
plete iji  itself.  I  would  not  act  so  unfairly  as  to  judge 
Wordsworth  by  his  Elarry  Gill  ;  I  would  impartially  I'ate 
him  by  his  most  important  work — the  Excursion.  I  do 
not  deny  but  that  this  latter  poem  demonstrates  genius 
sufficient  to  have  built  a  proportionate  and  goodly  edifice ; 
but,  as  it  is,  the  Excursion  stands  like  a  vast  unwieldly 
structure,  combining  the  barbarous  magnificence  with  the 
unsightly  rudeness  of  darker  ages ;  adorned  with  lofty 
towers,  disfigured  by  masses  of  shapeless  architecture, 
displaying  some  portions  in  apparent  ruin,  and  others  that 
seem  never  to  have  been  completed  ;  hallowed  by  shrines 
of  elaborate  carving,  desecrated  by  headless  and  grass- 
grown  images;  irradiated  with  chambers  of  gorgeous  de- 
light, perplexed  by  obscure  passages  that  lead  to  nothing. 

1  have  now  laid  before  the  reader  my  reasons  for 
refusing  to  pay  W^ordsworth  the  same  homage  that  I 
think  justly  due  to  Shakspeare,  Milton,  Pope,  Thomson, 
Gray,  Collins,  and  Burns.  The  nature  of  the  criticisms, 
and  the  intricate  mazes  in  which  Wordsworth  has  involved 
his  theory,  have  obliged  me  to  treat  the  subject  at  some 
length  ;  and  the  specious  manner  in  which  the  author  has 
invested  thoughts  by  no  means  new  with  an  air  of  origi- 
nality, has  constrained  me  to  enter  into  the  details  with 
perhaps  too  great  a  degree  of  minuteness.  Yet  for  this  I 
can  scarcely  apologize,  as  I  consider  the  subject  suffi- 
ciently important  to  justify  a  particular  investigation.  In 
this  day,  when  the  correct  and  classical  models  of  poetical 
composition  arc  not  only  deserted,  but  contemned, — when 


292  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

Pope  is  looked  upon  as  a  mere  heartless  versifier,  and 
when  a  place  beside  Milton  is  gravely  demanded  for 
Wordsworth,  there  is  great  need  that  such  questions 
should  be  calmly  and  impartially  discussed.  It  may  be 
expected  that  I  should  here  make  some  disparaging  speech 
concerning  the  feebicnos.s  of  my  own  voice ;  but  I  forbear, 
for  such  speeches  are  never  believed.  If  it  be  asked  from 
what  motives  I  have  written,  I  answer,  first,  and  more 
especially  from  the  conviction  just  mentioned  above,  that 
correctives  to  literary  taste  arc  needed  in  the  present  day, 
and  from  a  wish  to  protect  the  rising  generation  from  the 
sophistry  of  zealous  proselytes.  To  this  leading  incentive 
may,  no  doubt,  be  added  the  usual  blending  of  motives, 
which  produce  almost  every  human  action.  As  far  as  I 
know  myself,  they  are  these.  The  pleasure  of  consider- 
ing any  literary  question — a  large  endowment  (as  the 
phrenologists  would  say)  of  the  organ  of  combativcness — 
a  love  of  what  is  genuine,  impelling  me  to  oppose  that 
which  is  vulgarly  called  cant,  of  all  sorts,  (and  that  there 
is  a  cant  of  Wordsworthianism,  few  can  deny) — and 
finally,  the  natural  tendency  of  the  mind  to  revolt  from 
unfounded  pretensions.  These  motives  have  influenced 
me,  without  the  admixture  (I  owe  it  to  myself  to  afiirm) 
of  one  grain  of  malice.  Indeed,  when  I  consider  the  plea- 
sure which  some  of  Wordsworth's  best  productions  have 
given  me,  when  I  think  how  often  a  striking  line  or  image 
from  his  works  will  rise  upon  my  remembrance,  to  en- 
hance the  enjoyment  of  the  fairest  landscape,  or  of  the 
happiest  incident,  I  seem  to  stand  convicted  almost  of 
ingratitude  towards  one  who  has  ministered  so  largely 
towards  my  gratification;  and  nothing  but  a  strong  belief 
that,- in  proportion  as  Wordsworth's  powers  are  great, 
and  the  beauties  of  his  Muse  numerous,  in  that  proportion 
are  his  faults  influential  and  dangerous,  could  have  over- 
come the  reluctance  with  which  I  sat  down,  with  an  appa- 
rent intent  to  lower  the  fame  of  the  bard.  I  say  apparent, 
for  the  fact  is,  that  I  propose  to  do  him  more  real  justice 
than  his  vehement  admirers,  inasmuch  as  I  shall  bring 
forward  his  best  compositions,  while  they  only  defend  his 
worst.  Moreover,  from  the  false  supremacy  in  which  his 
disciples  have  enthroned  him,  the  fall  must,  one  day,  be 


AVORDS  WORTH.  293 

SO  great  as  to  shake  his  reputation  altogether ;  while,  on 
the  other  hand,  his  claims  to  admiration  being  once  placed 
on  the  basis  of  truth,  become  immutable,  and  not  to  be 
assailed.  I  have  fully  complied  with  Wordsworth's  one 
request,  which  he  makes  to  his  reader,  namely,  "  that  in 
judging  of  the  poems  in  question,  he  would  decide  by  his 
own  feelings  genuinely,  and  not  by  reflection  upon  what 
will  probably  be  the  judgment  of  others."  "  I  do  abide," 
as  Wordsworth  desires,  "  independently  by  my  own  feel- 
ings." I  may  be  "  inca[)able,"  but  I  am  not  biassed. 
Let  my  reader  bear  in  mind,  that  I  have,  all  along,  only 
judged  Wordsworth  by  tliC  public  standard  of  his  works — 
as  an  author,  and  not  as  a  man.  The  literary  vanity  on 
which  1  have  freely  animadverted,  does  not  exist  in  his 
private  life ;  in  that  sphere  he  is  unimpeachable ;  and  with 
regard  to  his  political  conduct,  no  one  would  be  readier 
than  myself  to  defend  him  from  charges,  which,  when 
brought  against  a  man  of  his  stamp  of  mind,  are  plainly 
I'idiculous.  I  have  now  concluded  the  indictment,  and  all 
that  remains  to  me,  is  the  pleasanter  task  of  calling  wit- 
nesses on  the  other  side.  Having  endeavoured  to  prove 
that  Wordsworth  cannot  be  classed  amongst  our  highest 
authors,  who  are  great  by  consistency,  I  shall  proceed  to 
show,  in  the  next  and  last  part  of  this  essay,  that  he  may, 
nevertheless,  fairly  claim  to  be  associated  with  the  band 
of  true  poets  in  general. 


I'AKT    IV. 

Let  me  now  proceed  to  the  second  part  of  my  subject, 
and  endeavour  to  show,  that  in  proportion  as  Wordsworth 
has  been  over  estimated  by  his  too  ardent  admirers,  he  has 
been  underrated  by  those,  who  have  had  neither  opportu- 
nity nor  desire  to  investigate  his  claims  to  public  notice. 
This  will  be  a  pleasant  task,  for  I  shall  have  to  recall  pas- 
sages from  which  1  have  derived  no  ordinary  degree  of 
gratification,  and  which,  I  hope,  will  impart  somewhat  of 
the  same  feeling  to  my  reader.  At  the  same  time,  I  fear 
lest  my  method  of  defence  should  seem,  when,  contrasted 
25* 


294  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

with  my  manner  of  conducting  the  impeaclimcnt,  languid 
tand  inartificial.  My  previous  plan  forbids  me  to  show 
forth  the  beauties  of  Wordsworth  in  an  argumentative  and 
methodical  way  ;  for  all  the  former  part  of  my  essay  tends 
to  prove  that  Wordsworth  is  systematically  wrong — how 
then,  without  legal  ambidexterity,  can  I  undertake  to  prove 
that  he  is  systematically  right?  As  I  have  maintained 
that  Wordsworth  has  never  produced  a  great  and  consis- 
tent whole,  and  that  his  fine  thoughts  lie  scattered  through- 
out his  writings,  I  must  necessarily  display  his  merits 
rather  by  quotation  than  by  argument:  thus,  I  lay  myself 
open  to  the  charge  of  expending  my  powers  in  censure, 
and  of  rendering  the  work  of  praise  a  mere  affair  of  the 
scissors.  However,  I  am  encouraged  by  the  reflection 
that,  with  a  large  mass  of  readers,  the  course  which  I  am 
about  to  pursue,  will  be  the  most  certain  of  attaining  its 
end.  Wordsworth  is  not  generally  admired,  only  because 
he  is  not  generally  known.  To  adduce  a  case  in  point — 
I  had  frequently  endeavoured  to  persuade  some  friends 
that  Wordsworth  was  an  author  of  great  merit.  Like 
many  other  persons,  the};  entrenched  themselves  behind  a 
settled  conviction  of  his  inanity  and  childishness.  Read 
him  they  would  not :  admire  him  they  were  very  certain 
they  could  not.  Reader,  do  not  smile  !  De  te  fabula  nar- 
ratur.  Did  you  never  condemn  a  cause  (perhaps  Words- 
worth's cause)  unheard  1  At  length,  after  the  controversy 
had  died  away,  I  betook  myself  to  quoting  from  his  works, 
without  bringing  forward  the  author's  name.  "  What  an 
exquisite  piece  of  poetry  !"  exclaimed  one  of  my  candid 
friends,  after  I  had  finished  reciting  Wordsworth's  sonnet 
composed  on  Westminster  Bridge ;  "  Is  it  not  by  some 
great  writer  ?  I  scarcely  know  any  one  living  whom  I 
consider  worthy  to  have  composed  it."  I  repeated  Lucy 
Gray — "What  pathos!"  Laodamia — "  What  grandeur  !" 
"  These  poems  are  by  Wordsworth,"  at  length  I  said  ; 
"and,  now  that  you  know  this,  I  will  not  allow  you  to 
recede  from  one  syllable  of  your  praise."  Since  that  day, 
1  have  heard  no  more  of  Wordsworth's  childishness  from 
my  worthy  friends.  Now, although  in  my  present  defence 
of  Wordsworth  I  cannot  secure  the  advantage  of  conceal- 
ing his  name,  which  alone  excites  repugnance  in  so  many 


WORDSWORTH.  295 

with  whom  a  name  is  every  thing ;  yet  I  may  possibly 
startle  some  objectors  into  acquiescence,  by  flashing  before 
their  eyes  those  passages  of  dazzling  merit,  for  which  they 
never  would  have  searched  in  the  parent  volume.  Some 
persons  may  remark,  that  1  have  filled  three  numbers  with 
censures  of  Wordsworth's  writings,  and  that  I  have  only 
devoted  one  to  his  vindication.  1  answer,  that  blame  de- 
mands more  particularity  than  praise.  A  friend,  we  will 
suppose,  reads  me  a  favourite  poem.  Struck  with  some 
fine  passage,  I  exclaim,  "  How  beautiful  1"  Fie  does  not 
inquire,  '■'■  Wlnj  do  you  think  that  passage  beautifull" 
Shortly  after,  I  perhaps  exclaim, — "  That  is  bad,  or  faulty." 
Immediately  follows  the  question,  "  Wkjj  do  you  think 
that  faulty?  Give  me  your  reasons."  Thus,  having 
censured  certain  parts  of  the  writings  and  theory  of  Words- 
worth, I  considered  mysc>lf  bound  to  assign,  as  if  in  reply 
to  an  inquirer,  the  particular  causes  of  my  dislike;  on  the 
other  hand,  in  substantiating  Wordsworth's  claim  to  admi- 
ration, I  would  rather  appeal  to  the  feelings  of  men,  than 
endeavour  (a  hopeless  task !)  to  argue  my  reader  into 
approbation.  To  explain  my  meaning  more  briefly — 
faults  may  be  detected  by  analysis  ;  beauties  are  only 
injured  by  analysis — faults  may  be  argued  upon  ;  beau- 
ties must  be  felt.  On  these  accounts,  I  consider  that  the 
best  refutation  of  all  poetical  calumnies  against  Words- 
worth's writings,  is  to  be  found  in  the  writings  them- 
selves. I  would  simply  address  a  non-admirer  of  the 
])oct  with  the  well-known  entreaty — "  Strike,  but  hear  !" 
Abuse  Wordsworth  as  much  as  you  think  fit,  but  in  fair- 
ness, listen  to  so  much  of  his  compositions  as  after  ages 
will  purify  from  the  dross  that  surrounds  them,  and  will 
collect  into  one  body  of  worth  and  splendour.  Then 
give  your  verdict — and  continue  to  abuse  him,  if  you  can. 
Let  me  hope,  then,  that  in  laying  before  my  readers  some 
of  Wordsworth's  best  things,  without  many  comments  of 
my  own,  I  am  doing  him  all  possible  justice.  Haply  the 
large  number  of  persons  who  have  hitherto  decided  upon 
our  author  from  hearsay,  may  find  that  they  have  all  this 
time  been  fighting  with  a  shadowy  Wordsworth  of  their 
own  creation.     Haply  the  passages,  which  I  shall  bring 


296  Wilson's  jiiscellaxeous  ■writings. 

before  them,  will  strike  their  minds  with  all  the  charms  of 
novelty,  as  well  as  of  poetical  beauty. 

It  will  be  my  endeavour  to  prove  by  appropriate  ex- 
tracts from  ^\'ordsworth's  poems,  that  he  has  displayed 
great  powers  of  description,  in  the  first  place,  of  external 
nature ;  secondly,  of  nature  as  connected  with  some  inter- 
nal passion,  or  moral  thought,  in  the  heart  and  mind  of 
man;  thirdly,  of  human  appearance,  as  indicative  of 
human  character,  or  varieties  of  feeling.  I  shall  also 
attempt  to  show,  that  he  has  manifested  an  ability  to 
move  the  affections  by  means  of  simple  pathos — that  he 
has  occasionally  attained  a  chaste  and  classical  dignity — 
that  he  has  successfully  illustrated  religious  and  moral 
truths,-  and,  finally,  that  he  has  brought  the  sonnet — that 
difficult  vehicle  of  poetic  inspiration — to  its  highest  possi- 
ble pitch  of  excellence. 

In  description  of  natural  scenery,  Wordsworth  is  almost 
always  good.  Like  Anta?us,  he  is  strong  whenever  he 
touches  his  native  earth.  If,  in  his  best  poems,  we  too 
often  find  something  to  condemn,  let  us  remember,  that 
even  in  his  worst,  we  frequently  stumble  upon  passages 
of  unexpected  beauty — passages  of  pure  and  masterly 
description.  In  spite  of  the  self-riveted  chains  of  his 
theory,  the  poet  %cill  break  forth  throughout  Wordsworth's 
writings,  and  falsify  his  own  dogmas  as  triumphantly,  as 
one  who  wishes  to  refute  them  could  desire.  Even  from 
the  dulness  of  a  Thanksgiving  Ode,  sparkles  of  living 
poetry  shine  out.  Whenever  Wordsworth  breaks  into 
description,  he  leaves  prose  far  behind.     For  instance — 

"The  stillness  of  tlioso  frosty  i)luins, 
Tlicir  utter  stillness,  and  the  silent  s^race 
Of  yon  ctiicreal  summits  white  will)  e^now, 
(Whose  tranquil  pomp  and  spotless  purity 
Report  of  storms  gone  by 
To  us  who  tread  below,) 
Do  with  the  service  of  this  day  accord." 

The  above  lines  are  calculated,  I  may  safely  affirm,  to 
imbue  the  mind  with  the  very  feeling  of  a  calm  and  ten- 
derly bright  winter's  day.     To   use  a  strong  metaphor, 


WORDSWORTH.  297 

Silcaco  speaks  in  tliem.  The  allusion  to  bygone  tem- 
])csts  is  a  touch  from  a  master's  hand.  It  heightens 
witliout  disturbing  the  universal  repose,  and  connects  the 
troublous  soul  of  man  witli  the  serene  aspect  of  nature — 
the  memory  of  the  past,  with  the  enjoyment  of  the  present 
— earth  with  heaven,  in  a  very  happy  and  beautiful  manner. 
A  priori,  it  might  be  supposed  that  a  rnan  who,  like 
Wordsworth,  possessing  a  poet's  keen  perceptions,  has 
passed  ail  his  life  amidst  the  grandeur  of  a  mountainous 
country,  should  pour  u[)on  his  page  all  the  changeful  hues 
of  clouds  and  vapours ;  and  should  inform  his  verse  with 
the  "  undescribed  sounds"  of  earth,  air,  and  water.  Nor, 
if  we  ojien  Wordsworth's  volumes,  will  the  expectation  be 
disajjpointed.  I  do  not  know  any  author  who  has  made 
a  happier  use  of  the  grand  phenomena  of  nature.  His 
little  work  on  the  scenery  of  the  English  Lakes,  although 
written  in  prose,  may  be  mentioned  as  being  the  true  pro- 
duction of  a  poet.  It  ought  to  become  the  manual  of  the 
])oel,  and,  I  may  add,  of  the  painter,  who  is  studying 
Nature  in  her  own  domain.  This  work  is  remarkable,  if 
it  were  only  as  a  monument  of  the  superiority  of  imagina- 
tion over  science.  Here  is  a  man,  who  has  never  in- 
scribed himself  amongst  the  members  of  the  Royal  Aca- 
demy, yet  who,  by  mere  force  of  genius,  by  that  intuitive 
penetration,  which  "  looks  all  Nature  through,"  writes 
like  a  painter,  composes  pictures,  and  throws  out  sug- 
gestions, to  originate  which  our  would-be  Claudes  and 
Poussins  are  totally  incapable. 

It  is  a  remarkable  circumstance  that  our  great  descriptive 
poets  have  seldom  ventured  upon  a  particular  delineation 
of  mountain  scenery,  and  its  accompanying  phenomena. 
Milton's  description  of  Paradise  is  like  a  picture  skilfully 
composed  from  the  choicest  parts  of  individual  sketches. 
It  is  truth  arranged  by  fiction.  Thomson  (although  born 
in  a  land  of  mist  and  mountains)  seems  to  alternate,  in  his 
Seasons,  between  gorgeous  but  vague  representations  of 
foreign  climes,  and  faithful  transcripts  of  England's  milder 
scenery.     He  appears  more  pleased 

"To  taste  the  smell  of  dairy,  and  ascend 
Some  eminence,  Augusta,  in  thy  plains," 


298  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

than  to  climb  tlic  painful  steeps  of  a  Scottish  mountain. 
He  exclaims,  indeed,  "  To  mc  be  Nature's  volume  wide 
displayed!" — but  for  what  purpose? — "Some  easy  pas- 
sage raptured  to  translate."  His  finest  poem, — the  en- 
chanting "  Casllc  of  Indolence," — in  the  composition  of 
which  the  mantle  of  Spenser  seems  to  have  descended 
upon  the  bard — is  a  land  of  dreams,  shadowed  by  un- 
earthly groves,  iiluininated  by  unearthly  light.  After 
Thomson,  came  Cowpcr,  who,  even  more  than  Thomson, 
may  be  pronounced  to  have  adhered  to  real  l^nglish  land- 
scape-painting. 1  do  not  mention  this  predilection  for 
Nature's  common  form  as  a  defect  in  either  of  the  above- 
named  poets.  On  the  contrary,  I  conceive  that,  by  their 
choice  of  well-known  objects,  they  secured  for  themselves 
a  more  extensive  sympathy  than  they  could  have  com- 
manded, had  they  delineated  those  features  of  Nature, 
which  are  not  (to  use  a  beautiful  expression  of  Sir  Thomas 
Brown)  "expansed  unto  the  eyes  of  all."  But  the  reader 
will  perceive  the  wide  dominion,  which  their  timidity  or 
their  policy  has  left  unconqucred — unappropriated,  and, 
as  it  were,  ready  to  the  grasp  of  such  a  man  as  Words- 
worth, who  not  only  was  born,  but  has  resided  amongst 
rocks,  lakes,  and  mountains,  (thus  uniting  the  force  of 
liabit  to  that  of  early  association,)  and  who  possesses  the 
heart,  the  eye,  and  the  hand  of  a  poet.  On  this  ground 
Wordsworth  may  take  a  lofty  and  commanding  station. 
When  I  reflect  that  to  him  both  the  present  and  the  future 
lime  are  and  will  be  indebted  for  the  most  accurate  and 
noble  embodying  of  Nature's  grandest  forms,  I  am  dis- 
posed to  retract  my  former  assertion,  that  Wordsworth 
has  done  nothing  more  than  has  been  done  by  others. 
He  is  not  the  first  descriptive  poet,  but,  it  must  be  con- 
fessed, that  he  is  the  first  descriptive  poet  of  his  order. 
He  has  given  "  a  local  habitation  and  a  name"  to  the 
subtle  essences  of  the  elements ;  he  has  given  a  voice  to 
storms  and  torrents.  The  Excursion  is  full  of  such  wild 
determined  forms  as  Salvator  Rosa  loved  to  fling  together, 
— of  such  calm  or  such  tciiipestuous  skies  as  Gaspar 
Poussin  dared  to  transfer  to  canvass.  As  an  example,  I 
select  a  passage  which  aj)pears  to  mc  a  trium[)hant  proof 


WOIIDSWORTII.  299 

of  the  powers  of  language,  when  wielded  by  a  powerful 
mind. 

-"  A  step, 


A  single  step,  that  freed  me  from  tlic  skirts 
Of  the  blind  vapour,  open'd  to  my  view 
Glory  beyond  all  glory  ever  seen 
By  waking  sense,  or  by  the  dreaming  soul ! 

The  appearance,  instantaneously  disclosed, 
Was  of  a  mighty  city — boldly  say 
A  wilderness  of  building,  sinking  far 
And  self-withdrawn  into  a  wondrous  depth, 
Far  sinking  into  splendour,  without  end. 
Fabric  it  seem'd  of  diamond  and  of  gold. 
With  alabaster  domes  and  silver  spires, 
And  blazing  terrace  upon  terrace  high 
Uplifled  ;  here,  serene  pavilions  bright 
In  avenues  disposed  ;  there,  towers  hegirt 
With  battlements,  that  on  their  restless  fronts 
Bore  stars — illumination  of  all  gems! 
By  earthly  nature  had  the  effect  been  wrought 
Upon  the  dark  materials  of  the  storm 
Now  pacified  ;  on  them  and  on  the  coves, 
And  mountain-steeps  and  summits,  whereunto 
The  vapours  had  receded,  taking  there 
Their  station  under  a  cerulean  sky." 

Excursion. 

We  might  perhaps  search  in  vain  throughout  the  whole 
compass  of  English  poetry,  for  another  example  of"  words 
tinged  with  so  many  colours."  Yet  Wordsworth  exclaims, 
immediately  after  bringing  this  striking  spectacle  so  suc- 
cessfully before  the  imagination  of  the  reader, 

"  Oh  'twas  an  unimaginable  sight !" 

So  far  will  a  true  poet's  feeling  transcend  his  own  most 
burning  language.  I  have  before  hinted,  that  Wordsworth 
has  not  only  presented  the  hues  of  nature  to  the  eye,  but 
has  also  limited  her  harmonies  to  the  car.  Of  this,  also,  I 
will  adduce  an  instance. 

"  Astounded  in  the  moimtain  gap 
By  peals  of  thunder,  clap  on  clap, 


300  AVlLSO^'s  3IISCELLANE0US  WRITINGS. 

And  many  a  terror-striking  flash, 

And  somewhere,  as  it  seems,  a  crash 

Among  the  rocks ;  with  weight  of  rain. 

And  sullen  motions,  long  and  sloio. 

That  to  a  dreanj  distance  go — 

Till  breaking  in  upon  liic  dying  strain, 

A  rending  o'er  his  head  begins  the  fray  again." 

Wagonner. 

Surely  the  four  lines  mrkod  by  the  italic  character 
would  alone  be  sufficient  to  decide  the  question,  whether 
such  a  grace  as  imitative  harmony  really  exists.  I  own 
that  it  is  difficult  to  determine  how  much  of  the  effect  u[)on 
the  mind  depends  upon  the  meaning  associated  with  the 
words ;  but  let  it  be  remembered,  that  words  dcsignative 
of  sound,  have  naturally  derived  their  birth  from  an  at- 
tempt— in  the  infancy  of  language — actually  to  imitate  the 
sounds  of  which  they  are  symbolical.  After  God's  own 
language — the  Hebrew — and  the  affluent  Greek,  there  is 
probably  no  tongue  so  rich  in  imitative  harmonies  as  our 
own.  Wherever  its  native  texture  breaks  boldly  forth 
through  the  foreign  fripperies  with  which  it  is  overlaid,  it 
possesses  all  the  strength  of  elemental  nature.  Our  cli- 
mate, our  insular  situation,  the  character  of  our  earliest 
conquerors,  may,  in  some  degree,  account  for  this.  We 
should  naturally  expect,  that  the  land  of  ocean  and  of  storm 
would  engender  a  more  sinewy  language  than  the  sunny 
plains  of  France.  Let  any  person,  with  a  true  ear,  ob- 
serve the  difference  between  the  two  words  s) /on-  and  rain. 
The  hushing  sound  of  the  sibilant,  in  the  first,  followed  by 
the  soft  liquid,  and  by  the  round  full  vowel,  is  not  less  in- 
dicative of  the  still  descent  of  snow,  than  the  harsher  liquid 
and  vowel,  in  the  second,  are  of  the  falling  shower.  1  fear 
that  I  shall  be  considered  fanciful,  yet  I  cannot  help  re- 
marking that  the  letter  R,  the  sound  of  which,  when 
lengthened  out,  is  so  expressive  of  the  murmur  of  streams 
and  brooks,  is  generally  to  be  found  in  words  relating  to 
the  element  of  water,  and  in  such  combinations  as,  either 
single  or  reduplicated,  suit  precisely  its  different  modifica- 
tions. The  words  "  long'''  and  '■'■dmv'''  arc,  if  pronounced 
in  a  natural  manner,  actually  of  a  longer  time  than  the 
words  short  and  quick.     There  is  a  drag  upon  the  nasal 


WOEDSWORTU.  301 

iVand  G  ;  there  is  a  protracted  cfTect  in  the  vowel  followed 
by  a  double  vowel,  in  the  two  first  words,  not  to  be  found 
in  the  two  last.  To  speak  musically,  the  former  might  be 
noted  down  in  semibreves,  the  latter  in  crotchets.  1  for- 
bear to  say  more  on  the  intimate  connexion  between  lan- 
guage and  the  sounds  or  ideas  of  which  it  is  symbolical, 
since  the  subject  is  extensive  and  important  enough  to  de- 
mand a  separate  dissertation.  Thus  much,  however,  in 
illustration  of  Wordsworth's  beautiful  lines,  wherein  the 
sound  is  so  true  an  echo  to  the  sense,  I  trust,  will  not  be 
thought  irrelevant.  So  replete  are  Wordsworth's  works 
with  passages  of  fine  or  of  pleasing  description,  that  it  is 
difBcult  to  particularize  a  few,  and  impossible  to  name  them 
all.  I  must,  therefore,  confine  myself  to  pointing  out  those 
which  appear  to  me  more  especially  to  display  an  intimate 
acquaintance  with  nature,  and  a  graphic  fidelity  in  repre- 
senting her  varieties.  In  the  Wagonner,  a  description  of 
early  morning,  beginning — 

"See  Skiddaw's  top  with  rosy  light 
Is  touch'd," 

would,  I  believe,  have  been  as  often  quoted  with  enthu- 
siasm as  Walter  Scott's  moonlight  picture  of  Melrose  Ab- 
bey, had  it  been  found  amongst  the  minstrelsy  of  the  great 
Northern  Magician.  How  fresh  and  vigorous  is  the  fol- 
lowmg  couplet — 

"  Thence  look  thou  forth  o'er  wood  and  lawn, 
Hoar  with  the  frost-like  dews  of  dawn," 

How  admirably  the  poet  has  placed  in  the  landscape,  by 
a  single  touch, 

"The  ruin'd  towers  of  Threlkeld  Hall, 
Lurking  in  a  double  shade. 
By  trees  and  lingering  twilight  made .'" 

A  fragment,  entitled  a  Night-Piece,  amongst  the  minor 
poems,  deserves  notice.  It  is  a  fragment,  as  carefully 
finished  as  one  of  Raphael's  heads  from  the  life,  intended 
to  be  introduced  into  a  larger  picture,  and  perhaps  more 

VOL.  I.  26 


302  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

beautiful  by  itself,  than  when  forming  a  portion  of  other 
beauties.     In  reading  it,  we  seem  actually  to  behold 

"The  continuous  cloud  of  texture  close, 
Heavy  and  wan,  all  whiteii'd  by  the  moon;" 

and,  like  the  traveller  on  his  lonesome  journey,  we  are 
startled  by  the  sudden  gleam  of  light,  by  which  the  clouds 
are  split  asunder.     We  look  up  and  behold 

"  The  clear  moon  and  the  glory  of  the  heavens." 

In  what  follows,  there  is  a  fine  poetical  touch — a  sort  of 
mysterious  beauty — 

"There  in  a  black,  blue  vault  she  sails  along, 
Follow'd  by  multitudes  of  stars,  that,  small, 
And  sharp,  and  bright,  along  the  dark  abyss 
Drive  as  she  drives; — how  fast  they  loheel  away, 
Yet  vanish  not!     The  wind  is  iii  the  tree. 
But  they  are  silent." 

Hitherto  I  have  confined  myself  to  passages  of  almost 
pure  description.  But  Wordsworth  occasionally  combines 
very  beautiful  feelings  v/ith  beautiful  imagery,  and  inter- 
prets nature's  meanings  with  the  initiated  knowledge  of 
one  who,  to  use  his  own  expression,  is  endowed  with  "  the 
vision  and  the  faculty  divine."  In  other  words,  he  has 
(as  I  undertook,  in  the  second  place,  to  prove)  success- 
fully exhibited  "  nature  in  connexion  with  some  internal 
passion,  or  moral  thought,  in  the  heart  and  mind  of  man." 
The  passage,  which  I  am  about  to  adduce,  in  testimony  of 
this,  is,  an  extract,  long;  but  if  any  one  should  feci  that 
it  is  long,  I  may  say,  with  Bcattie,  "  He  need  not  woo  the 
muse — he  is  her  scorn."  1  should  be  most  unjust  to  the 
poet  wei'e  I  not  to  give  the  passage  entire : — 

"  Has  not  the  soul,  the  being  of  your  life. 
Received  a  shock  of  awful  consciousness. 
In  some  calm  season,  when  these  lofty  rocks, 
At  night's  approach,  bring  down  th'  unclouded  sky 
To  rest  upon  their  circumambient  walls; 
A  temple  framing  of  dimensions  vast. 
And  yet  not  too  enormoi's  for  the  sound 


WORDSWORTH.  303 

Of  liuman  anthems — choral  song,  or  burst 
Sublime  of  instrumental  harmony, 
To  glorify  th'  Eternal !     What  if  these 
Did  never  break  the  stillness  that  prevails 
Here,  if  the  solemn  nightingale  be  mute, 
And  the  soft  woodlark  here  did  never  chant 
Her  vespers,  Nature  fails  not  to  provide 
Impulse  and  utterance.     The  whispering  air 
Sends  inspiration  from  the  shadowy  heights, 
And  blind  recesses  of  the  cavern'd  rocks; 
Tiie  little  rills  and  waters  numberless, 
Inaudible  by  daylight,  blend  their  notes 
With  the  loud  streams :  and  often,  at  the  hour 
Wlien  issue  forth  the  first  pale  stars,  is  heard, 
Within  the  circuit  of  this  fabric  huge, 
One  voice — one  solitary  raven,  flying 
Athwart  the  concave  of  the  dark-blue  dome, 
Unseen,  perchance  above  the  power  of  sight — 
An  iron  knell !     With  echoes  from  afar, 
Faint,  and  still  fainter." — {Excursion.) 

To  those  who  are  acquainted  with  the  phenomena  of 
mountainous  countries,  I  need  not  point  out  the  exquisite 
fitness  of  every  component  part  of  the  above  description. 
But  to  those  who  have  never  dwelt  amongst  rocks  and 
waters,  I  may  observe,  that,  in  all  its  accompaniments, 
there  is  a  peculiar  truth  and  beauty,  which  can  scarcely 
be  appreciated  by  the  inhabitants  of  lowlier  regions,  how- 
ever they  may  enter  into  the  feelings  with  which  the  de- 
scription is  connected.  The  soul  of  any  reflective  being 
may,  indeed,  receive  "  a  shock  of  awful  consciousness" 
from  the  contemplation  of  the  unclouded  heavens;  but  the 
walls  of  the  temple  are  wanting — those  walls  which,  as  if 
endued  with  silent  life,  are  so  finely  said  by  the  poet  to 
bring  doion  the  sky  to  rest,  as  if  with  love,  upon  their  glo- 
rious summits.  The  weaving  in  of  the  evening  shades 
has  completely  this  effect.  The  outlines  of  the  mountains 
do  not  so  much  appear  to  soar  into  the  clear-obscure,  as  to 
attract  the  clear-obscure  towards  themselves.  Again,  there 
is  a  peculiar  propriety  in  the  accompanying  melodies  with 
which  the  poet  has  enriched  his  scenery.  Amongst  moun- 
tains, the  hush  of  evening  draws  forth  the  sound  of  the 


304  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

smaller  waterfalls  in  a  wonderful  and  almost  unaccoimt- 
able  manner.  By  night  I  have  seemed  to  hear  fifty- 
streams,  the  voices  of  which  1  never  could  distinguish 
during  the  stillest  day,  even  in  places  remote  from  that 
confused  murmur  of  human  existence,  which  might  be 
supposed  to  have  its  share  in  deadening  tones  so  delicate. 
Perhaps  the  dewy  freshness  of  the  night  air  may  be  a  fitter 
medium  for  sound;  but  certain  it  is,  that  I  have  been  able 
to  divide  from  each  other  the  notes  of  the  various  streams, 
amidst  the  general  concert,  (united  yet  distinct,)  as  one 
would  distinguish  between  voice  and  voice  in  a  chorus  of 
birds.  The  "  iron  knell"  is  more  finely  characteristic  of 
the  raven's  note  than  can  be  conceived  by  any  person 
who  has  not  heard  it  come  suddenly  upon  the  ear,  in  a 
solitary  vale,  clanging  from  rock  to  rock  with  monotonous 
grandeur.  Under  such  circumstances,  the  efl'ect  which  it 
produces  is  positively  startling.  No  ordinary  idea  of  a 
raven's  croak  will  assist  us  in  forming  a  notion  of  it.  The 
"  iron  knell"  of  the  poet,  with  all  its  dim  associations,  will 
raise  the  imagination  as  near  to  the  reality  as  is  perhaps 
possible.  In  fine,  the  severe  rejection  of  all  commonplace 
ornament  from  the  above  passage — of  all  but  that  which 
suits  the  season  and  the  scene — the  appropriate  solemnity 
of  the  versification,  and  the  sustained  loftiness  of  the  dic- 
tion, render  the  whole  description  consistent  and  majestic. 
Although  1  consider  Wordsworth  mistaken  in  so  con- 
stantly endeavouring  to  educe  lofty  feelings  from  lowly 
subjects,  yet  it  must  be  allowed  that  he  is  occasionally  suc- 
cessful in  the  working  up  of  apparently  unpromising  ma- 
terials. A  little  piece,  called  Nutting,  is  a  pleasing  instance 
of  this  ;  and  he  has  not  only  contrived  to  render  skating 
poetical,  but  has  made  it  the  basis  of  some  very  striking 
description,  combined  with  ennobling  sensations,  fie  re- 
presents himself  in  the  sportive  vigour  of  youth,  together 
with  his  companions,  engaged  in  this  sport : — 

"All  shod  witli  Pteel, 
We  hiss'd  along  the  polisli'd  ice,  in  games 
Confederate,  imitative  of  the  chase. 
And  woodland  pleasures." 


WORDSWORTH.  305 

What  follows  is  extremely  beautiful ; — 

"  With  the  din 
Meanwhile  the  precipices  rang  aloud; 
The  leafless  trees,  and  every  icy  crag, 
Tinkled  like  iron;  while  the  distant  hills 
Into  the  tumult  sent  an  alien  sound 
Of  melancholy,  not  unnoticed  ;  while  the  stars 
Eastward  were  sparkling  clear,  and  in  the  west 
The  orange  sky  of  evening  died  away." 

The  lines  distinguished  by  italics  possess  a  grace  sinnilar 
to  that  which  I  pointed  out  in  a  previous  quotation.  As 
there  the  memory  of  "  storms  gone  by"  endeared  still 
more  the  present  tranquillity  of  nature,  so  here  the  "  alien 
sound  of  melancholy"  enhances  joy  by  a  thought  of  sor- 
row. We  are  strange  beings :  we  love  to  be  reminded  of 
our  mortal  state  even  in  the  midst  of  our  desires  to  forget 
it :  we  pursue  pleasure,  but  we  are  ever  looking  back  upon 
pain:  we  would  fain  prolong  the  banquet  of  life,  yet  we 
place  a  skull  in  the  midst  of  its  festal  flowers.  And  why? 
Because  ours  is  a  twofold  life — the  union  of  mortal  with 
immortal.  We  covet  happiness  by  the  very  constitution 
of  our  nature:  we  find  earthly  happiness  insufficient — we 
turn  back  to  the  more  majestic  form  of  sorrow.  We  court 
the  transitory,  but  seek  the  permanent.  On  this  account 
it  is,  that  whatever  addresses  us  as  man,  and  at  the  same 
time  makes  us  feel  that  we  are  more  than  man,  has  the 
greatest  power  over  our  passions.  Shakspeare  well  knew 
that  mirth  is  a  more  affecting  thing  than  grief,  or  rather, 
that  mirth  is  the  very  avenue  to  grief.  Again,  the  affec- 
tions are  more  readily  called  into  play  by  a  mixture  of 
mirth  and  melancholy,  because  such  a  mixture  does 
actually  more  resemble  human  life,  with  which  our  affec- 
tions are  entwined,  than  a  mere  transcript  of  one  to  the  ex- 
clusion of  the  other.  One  brief  note  coming  from  the 
depths  of  sorrow  upon  the  light  strains  of  pleasure,  unlocks 
our  tears  more  quickly  than  the  most  solemn  invocation  to 
wo.  Although  Wordsworth  docs  not  precisely,  like  Shak- 
speare, make  us  weep  with  a  witticism,  yet  no  author  is 
more  happy  than  himself  in  heightening  his  subject  by  a 
hint,  a  suggestion,  by  the  shadow  of  a  cloud,  which  causes 
26  « 


306  WILSOTs's  JIISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS. 

US  to  look  up  to  the  cloud  itself.  He  gives  the  picture  life 
without  marring  its  repose.  He  does  not  present  us  with 
a  description  of  external  nature  alone,  because  he  knows 
that  external  nature  chiefly  addresses  the  imagination,  that 
calm  yet  radiant  power  from  which  "  the  dangerous  pas- 
sions keep  aloof."  There  was  once  a  long  controversy 
between  the  respective  effects  of  art  and  nature.  The  two 
should  never  have  been  disjoined.  Art  is  not  felt  as  art, 
but  as  leading  us  back  to  man  and  nature.  The  world  is 
the  habitation  of  man.  Viewed  merely  as  a  stupendous 
effort  of  creative  power,  it  is  elevating  :  viewed  as  our  own 
home,  it  is  touching — for  its  meaning  and  its  purpose  are 
before  us.  Look  over  a  vast  expanse  of  country  :  is  it  the 
mere  sight  which  fills  the  eyes  with  tears?  Unconsciously 
the  thought  occurs,  upon  how  many  human  hopes  and 
fears,  joys  and  sorrows,  we  gaze  in  ignorance !  Every 
little  column  of  smoke,  pointing  out  the  habitation  of  man, 
may  be  the  index  to  a  scene  of  suffering,  or  of  delight,  may 
guide  the  eye  to  the  arena  of  a  struggle,  which  demons  and 
angels  watch  in  emulous  anxiety.  Yonder  old  tower,  how 
eloquently  it  speaks  of  mortal  grandeur  and  decay  !  Yon- 
der ship,  how  it  brings  even  the  mighty  ocean  within  the 
sphere  of  humanity  !  Should  the  prospect  be  over  a  deso- 
late region,  "empty  of  all  shape  of  life,"  the  source  of  its 
effect  upon  our  feelings  is,  under  a  different  modification, 
still  the  same — man — for  ever  man.  We  are  affected  by 
the  thought  that  man  is  not  there — there,  where  he  ought 
to  be.  In  the  first  case,  we  looked  upon  him  in  connexion 
with  his  birthright — now,  we  gaze  upon  the  inheritance 
without  the  heir.  The  veriest  anchorite  that  ever  raved 
about  solitude,  owes  the  force  of  his  appeal  to  the  existence 
of  the  world  which  he  deprecates.  But  I  have  detained 
my  reader  too  long  from  the  conclusion  of  Wordsworth's 
lines  upon  skating.  As  its  own  beauty  will  speak  for 
itself,  I  will  give  the  rest  of  the  poem  without  further  re- 
mark ;  merely  premising — for  the  benefit  of  Southrons — 
that  the  ice  of  lakes,  which  are  fed  by  pure  mountain 
streams,  is  a  very  diflcrent  thing  from  the  ice  of  the  ser- 
pentine river.  It  is,  without  a  strong  metaphor,  a  crystal 
pavement,  capable  of  reflecting  the  stars  as  truly  as  did 
the  unlVozen  waters.     So  transpicuous  is  ice  of  this  nature, 


WORDSWORTH.  307 

that  it  is  somewhat  awful  to  move  over  its  untried  surface, 
beneath  which  the  eye  can  descend  into  strange  depths 
and  oozy  hollows. 

"  Not  seldom  from  the  uproar  I  retired 
Into  a  silent  bay,  or  sportively 
Glanced  sideways,  leavini^  the  tumultuous  throng-, 
To  cross  the  bright  reflection  of  a  star, 
Imago  that,  dying  still  before  me,  gleam'd 
Upon  tiie  glasi^y  plain :  and  oftentimes 
When  we  had  given  our  bodies  to  the  wind, 
And  all  the  shadowy  banks  on  either  side 
Came  sweeping  through  the  darkness,  spiiniing  still 
The  rapid  line  of  motion,  then  at  once 
Have  I,  reclining  back  upon  my  heels, 
Stopp'd  short;  yet  still  tiie  sohtary  clills 
VVheel'd  by  me,  even  as  if  the  earth  had  roll'd, 
With  visible  motion,  her  diurnal  round  ! 
Behind  me  did  they  stretch  in  solemn  train. 
Feebler  and  feebler;  and  I  stood  and  watch'd 
Till  all  was  tranquil  as  a  summer  sea." 

I  now  proceed  to  show  that  Wordsworth  displays  power 
in  his  portraits  of  human  beings.  Here  also  he  is  not  a 
mere  describer.  The  lineaments  which  he  draws,  are 
indications  of  the  mind  within.  Not  unfrequently  he  gives 
some  masterly  touches,  which  are  to  the  character  de- 
scribed, what  the  hands  of  a  watch  are  to  the  dial-plate. 
They  tell  the  "  whereabout"  of  the  whole  man.  Indeed, 
Wordsworth  is  altogether  so  graphic  in  his  delineations 
both  of  nature  and  of  human  beings,  that  if  I  did  not 
remember  the  remark  of  Horace,  "  Ut  pictura,  poesis 
erit,"  I  should  conclude  that  he  had  deeply  studied  the 
art  of  painting.  But  the  truth  is,  that  herein  consists  the 
difference  between  the  poet  and  the  poetaster.  While  the 
latter  only  describes  either  from  recollection,  or  from  a 
survey  of  some  object,  the  Ibrmer  paints  from  an  image 
before  his  mental  eye — an  image  in  this  respect  transcend- 
ing Nature  herself,  inasmuch  as  it  combines  the  selectest 
parts  of  Nature.  "  Be  desperately  individiml  in  your 
studies  from  nature,"  said  a  celebrated  artist  to  a  friend 
of  mine,  who  wished  to  excel  in  painting ;  "  in  your  per- 
fect compositions,  bo  as  general  as  you  please."     The 


308  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

advice,  if  addressed  to  a  poet,  would  be  equally  good. 
He  must  not  aim  at  depicting  the  forms  of  Nature  so  much 
as  the  "  spirit  of  her  forms."  Wordsworth,  in  his  repre- 
sentation of  Peter  Bell,  has  admirably  exemplified  this 
imaginative  kind  of  painting.  I  cannot  give  a  better  spe- 
cimen of  his  successful  efforts  in  this  vein. 

"  Though  Nature  could  not  toucli  his  heart 
By  lovely  forms  and  placid  weather, 

And  tender  sounds,  yet  you  might  see 

At  once  that  Peter  13ell  and  she 
Had  often  been  togelher. 

"  A  savage  wildness  round  him  hung 

As  of  a  dweller  out  of  doors; 
In  his  whole  figure  and  his  mien, 
A  savage  character  was  seen 

Of  mountains  and  of  dreary  moors. 

"  He  had  a  dark  and  sidelong  walk, 

And  long  and  slouching  was  his  gait; 
Beneath  his  looks  so  bare  and  bold. 
You  might  perceive  his  spirit  cold 
Was  playing  with  some  inward  bait. 

%  :f:  :(:  %  %  :fj 

"  There  was  a  hardness  in  his  cheek, 
There  was  a  hardness  in  his  eye, 
As  if  the  man  had  fix'd  his  face. 
In  many  a  solitary  place, 
Against  the  wind  and  open  sky." 

I  would  ask  those,  who  are  possessed  with  an  opinion  that 
Wordsworth  is  a  childish  writer,  if  this  poi'trait  be  not 
sketched  with  a  vigorous  hand  1  Do  we  not  seem  actually 
to  look  upon  the  lawless  wanderer,  who, 

"  To  all  th'  unshaped  half-human  thoughts 
Which  solitary  Nature  feeds, 
Mid  summer  storms,  or  winter's  ice, 

Has join'd  whatever  vice, 

The  cruel  city  breeds  ?" 

Is  not  the  man's  whole  history  written  in  his  counte- 
nance'?   Does  it  not  tell  talcs  of  nightly  plunder  and  daily 


WOKUSWORTII.  o09 

debauchery?  Does  it  not  hint  dark  secrets  of  alliances 
with  smugglers  on  the  coast,  with  gipsies  on  the  wold, 
with  poachers  in  the  forest?  Is  it  not  hard  and  cruel 
enough  to  be  the  tablet  of  an  altar,  whereon  the  hope  and 
peace  of  many  a  rustic  beauty  has  been  sacrificed?  Upon 
that  brow  has  gathered  the  sweat  of  no  honest  toil,  the 
swarthy  tint  of  no  rural  labour — there  may  be  even  a 
spot  of  blood.  He  has  been  with  Nature,  yet  Nature  has 
touched  him  not.  Her  storms  have  furrowed  his  face, 
but  have  only  annealed  his  heart.  Can  any  thought  be 
more  striking?  What  can  represent  more  forcibly  the 
desperate  condition  of  the  man  than  the  idea  that  Nature 
herself  has  contributed  to  harden  him,  as  the  pure  soft 
element  of  water,  dropping  through  some  gloomy  chasm, 
sometimes  converts  to  stone  the  substances  on  which  it 
falls  ?  Let  me  now  place  before  the  reader  a  portrait  in 
quite  a  different  style — a  Morland  after  a  Salvator — the 
representation  of  a  true  English  ploughboy. 

"  His  joints  are  stiff; 
Beneath  a  cumbrous  frock,  that  to  the  knees 
Invests  tlie  thriving'  churl,  his  legs  appear, 
Fellows  to  those  which  lustily  upheld 
The  wooden  stools,  for  everlasting  use, 
On  which  our  fathers  sate.     And  mark  his  brow  ! 
Under  whose  shaggy  canopy  are  set 
Two  eyes,  not  dim,  but  of  a  healthy  stare; 
Wide,  shiggisli,  blank,  and  ignorant,  and  strange ; 
Proclaiming  boldly  that  they  never  drew 
A  look  or  motion  of  intelligence 
From  infant  conning  of  the  Christ-cross  row. 
Or  puzzling  through  a  primer,  line  by  line, 
Till  perfect  mastery  crown  the  pains  at  last." 

Excu7-sion. 

There  is,  in  the  above  lines,  a  kind  of  forcible  humour, 
which  may  remind  the  reader  of  Cowper's  manner  in  the 
Task.  The  versification  is  good,  and  gives  so  much  point 
to  the  thoughts,  that  it  should  seem  as  if  custom,  rather 
than  necessity,  had  caused  all  satires,  from  Donne  to 
Churchill,  to  be  written  in  rhyme. 

In  describing  the  external    indications  of  human   pas- 
sions, the  silent  eloquence  of  look  and  gesture,  Words- 


310  Wilson's  miscellaneous  avritings. 

worth  is  sometimes  eminently  successful.  The  whole 
story  of  Margaret,  in  the  Excursion,  is  a  series  of  affect- 
ing pictures.  Her  husband  had  joined  a  troop  of  soldiers, 
and  she  had  heard  no  tidings  of  him  for  more  than  a  year. 
The  gradual  doubt  respecting  his  fate,  slowly  sickening 
into  despair,  is  touched,  through  all  its  gradations,  with  a 
most  skilful  pencil.  By  degrees  her  garden  and  cottage, 
which  used  to  display  all  the  pride  of  neatness,  "  bespeak 
a  sleepy  hand  of  negligence,"  and  at  length  fall  into  decay 
and  ruin.  The  mourner's  spirit  sinks  into  a  kindred  state 
of  desolation,  and  yet  she  cannot  rest.  Her  despair  is 
even  without  the  comfort  of  its  usual  apathy.  The  irrita- 
tion always  kept  up  by  the  remains  of  suspense — by  the 
absence  of  all  tidings,  and  the  consequent  impossibility  of 
utter  certainty — gives  a  restlessness  to  her  mind,  and  to 
the  movements  of  her  body.  If  she  sees  a  soldier  pass, 
her  cheek  still  flushes,  and  her  step  involuntarily  bears 
her  from  the  cottage  door.     Even  her  child 

"  Had  from  its  mother  caught  the  trick  of  grief, 
And  sigh'd  amidst  its  playthings." 

A  state  more  miserable  can  scarcely  be  conceived.  As  a 
contemporary  poet  has  observed, 

"  What  can  match  the  sickness  of  suspense! 

To  act,  to  suffer,  may  be  nobly  great, — 
But  nature's  mightiest  eftbrt  is  to  wait!" 

In  such  a  condition,  the  mind  expends  its  force  upon 
itself.  Its  energies  fall  back  upon  the  heart  like  arrows 
sent  towards  heaven.  Nothing  is  known,  therefore  no- 
thing can  be  combated.  Nothing  is  to  be  done,  but  every 
thing  is  to  be  feared.  Here,  the  human  imagination  is 
unveiled  in  its  most  terrible  aspect — here  its  endless, 
boundless,  indestructible  powers  find  their  full  scope. 
Conjecture  cannot  exhaust  it.  Wordsworth  has  given  to 
the  world  perhaps  the  finest  picture  extant  of  a  being, 
whose  thoughts  thus  beat  themselves  against  the  bars  of 
their  prison.  The  following  passage  can  scarcely  be  read 
with  an  unmoved  heart : 


WORDSWORTH.  311 

"  Yes,  it  would  have  grieved 
Your  very  soul  to  see  her ;  evermore 
Her  eyelids  droop'd,  her  eyes  were  downward  cast; 
And,  when  she  at  her  table  gave  me  food, 
She  did  not  look  at  me.     Her  voice  was  low, 
Her  body  was  subdued.     In  every  act, 
Pertaining  to  her  house  affairs,  appear'd 
The  careless  stillness  of  a  thinking  mind, 
Self-occupied,  to  which  all  outward  things 
Are  like  an  idle  matter.     Still  she  sigh'd. 
But  yet  no  motion  of  the  breast  was  seen, 
No  heaving  of  the  heart.     While  by  the  fire 
We  sate  together,  sighs  came  on  my  ear, 
I  knew  not  how,  and  hardly  whence  they  came." 

Excursion. 

The  power  which  Wordsworth  has  shown  in  the  fore- 
going description,  to  move  the  softer  affections,  leads  me 
to  the  next  branch  of  my  subject.  I  would  prove  that 
simple  pathos  is  an  attribute  of  Wordsworth's  Muse. 
It  has  been  remarked  that  authors  never  esteem  their 
productions  according  to  their  real  degrees  of  merit. 
Wordsworth  is  a  singular  instance  of  the  truth  of  this 
observation.  He  has  pointed  out  the  Idiot  Boy  and  Goody 
Blake  to  the  reader's  notice,  but  has  omitted  altogether 
the  mention  of  some. pieces,  which  more  nearly  than  any 
thing  he  ever  wrote  exemplify  the  best  parts  of  his  own 
theory.  Occasionally  he  has  quaffed  from  the  very  Hip- 
pocrene  of  Nature,  and  has  displayed  the  pure  and  simple 
effects  of  real  inspiration.  I  would  adduce,  as  an  example 
of  this,  "  The  Complaint  of  a  Forsaken  Indian  Woman." 
I  must  premise,  that,  when  the  wandering  tribes  of  North 
America,  in  the  migrations  consequent  upon  their  wild 
and  precarious  mode  of  existence,  pass  from  one  region  to 
another,  a  cruel  necessity  obliges  them  to  leave  behind 
any  of  their  comrades,  who,  from  sickness  or  a  failure  of 
strength,  shall  fall  by  the  way.  In  those  desolate  tracts, 
to  delay  their  own  progress  on  the  sufferer's  account, 
would  endanger  the  lives  of  the  whole  community;  and 
often  the  poor  creature,  who  endures  all  the  tortures  of  a 
forced  march,  will  voluntarily  request  to  be  left  to  the 
milder  hand  of  death.  The  last  offices  which  the  tribe 
render  to  their  deserted  companions,  are  to  kindle  a  fire, 


312  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

and  to  leave  a  supply  of  wafer  and  food  behind  tliem,  with 
the  hngering  hope  that  they  may  yet  be  able  to  resume 
their  journey.  The  subject  is  in  itself  affecting,  and 
Wordsworth  has  treated  it  in  a  very  touching  manner. 
The  dying  woman,  whose  lament  falls  upon  the  silence  of 
the  frozen  desert,  breaks  out  into  speech  with  that  sort  of 
impatient  horror  which  the  utter  loneliness  and  awful 
appearances  of  that  dreadful  region  might  be  supposed  to 
excite : 

"  Before  I  see  another  day, 
Oh  let  my  body  die  away ! 
In  sleep,  I  hear  the  northern  gleams, 
The  stars  were  mingled  with  my  dreams." 

The  haunting  effect  of  strange  wild  objects  upon  the  en- 
feebled mind  of  sickness  is  in  the  last  couplet  finely  con- 
ceived. So  also  is  the  idea  that  she  could  have  travelled 
on  yet  a  litttle  farther  with  her  companions  : 

"Alas!  ye  might  have  dragg'd  me  on 
Another  day,  a  single  one  ! 
Too  soon  I  yielded  to  despair — 
Why  did  ye  listen  to  my  prayer] 
When  ye  were  gone  my  limhs  were  stronger." 

This  is  beautifully  true  to  nature.  It  is  not  for  her  own 
sake  that  she  clings  so  tenaciously  to  life  and  to  human 
fellowship — not  on  her  own  account  does  she  pray  so 
earnestly  for  "  another  day — a  single  one."  She  is  a 
mother  ;  and  as  every  fraction  of  time  spent  with  her 
infant  is  a  heap  of  gold,  so  every  least  division  of  an  hour 
passed  a[)art  from  it  is  a  weight  of  lead.  Who  can  read 
the  continuation  of  her  complaint  without  being  moved? 

"  My  child  !  they  gave  thee  to  another, 
A  iDoman  who  was  not  thy  another. 
When  from  my  arms  my  babe  they  took, 
Oil  me,  how  strangely  did  he  look  ! 
Through  his  whole  body  pomelhing  ran, 
A  most  strnngc  working  did  I  see; — 
As  if  he  strove  to  be  a  man, 
That  he  might  pull  the  sledge  for  me." 


WORDSWORTH.  313 

The  first  couplet  is  worth  whole  rcahTis  of  amplification. 
The  single  line — "  A  woman  who  was  not  thy  mother,"  is 
a  world  of  feeling  in  itself.  Thus  does  a  great  master 
find  the  shortest  passage  to  the  heart,  while  a  mere  de- 
scriber,  wandering  in  a  labyrinth,  never  reaches  the  heart 
at  all.  The  poem  concludes  with  a  burst  of  delirious 
agony — a  state  of  mind  in  which  intense  desire  dares 
possibility : 

"  I'll  follow  you  across  the  snow ; 
Ye  travel  lieavily  and  slow ! 
In  spite  of  all  my  weary  pain, 
I'll  look  upon  your  tents  again  !" 

Always,  with  the  exception  of  Betty  Foy,  Wordsworth 
has  been  peculiarly  happy  in  his  delineation  of  the  mater- 
nal passion.  Were  I  not  afraid  to  multiply  quotations,  I 
should  dwell  more  particularly  on  a  small  poem  entitled 
"  The  Affliction  of  INInrgaret."  I  cannot,  however,  omit 
the  following  stanza,  since  the  feeling  which  it  conveys  is 
capable  of  general  application  : 

"  Ah  little  doth  the  younir  one  dream, 
When  full  of  play  and  childish  cares, 
^Vhat  power  hath  even  his  wildest  scream 
Heard  by  its  mother  unawares. 
He  knows  it  not,  he  cannot  guess: 
Years  to  a  niotiier  bring  distress. 
But  do  not  make  her  love  the  less." 

"  But,  dear  me,"  methinks  I  hear  a  soft  voice  timidly  in- 
quire, "  has  Mr.  Wordsworth  never  written  any  thing 
about  an — another — sort  of  love  ?"  He  has,  madam  ;  and 
so  well  as  to  deserve  the  gratitude  of  the  whole  female 
community.  While  your  favourite.  Lord  Byron,  has  re- 
presented you  as  the  mere  objects  of  a  frantic  passion, 
which  I  will  not  name,  and  has  luxuriated  accordingly  in 
descriptions  of  gazelle  eyes  and  hyacinthine  locks,  Words- 
worth has  painted  you  w'ith  equal  purity  and  warmth. 
Exquisite  as  are  Lord  Byron's  stanzas  to  the  memory  of 
Thyrza,  I  fear  that  the  lady  was  no  better  than  she  should 

VOL.  r.  27 


314  avilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

be ;  but  we  can  have  no  doubt  of  the  virtue  of  the  loved, 
lost  object,  who  is  commemorated  in  the  following  lines : 

"  She  dwelt  among  th'  untrodden  ways, 
Beside  the  springs  of  Dove; 
A  maid  whom  there  were  none  to  praise, 
And  very  few  to  love. 

A  violet  by  a  mossy  stone 

Half  hidden  from  the  eye  ; 
Fair  as  a  star  when  only  one 

Is  sliining  in  the  sky. 

She  lived  unknown,  and  few  could  know 

When  Lucy  ceased  to  be ; 
But  she  is  in  her  grave, — and  oh 

The  ditFerence  to  ?ne  .'" 

"  Well  now,  are  those  lines  really  by  Mr.  Wordsworth  ? 
I  declare  they  are  very  pretty.  But  do  you  not  think, 
that,  '  oh,  the  difTerence  to  me  J^  is  a  little  bit  too  simple  ?" 
Not  in  the  least.  Would  you  have  liked  the  verse  better 
had  it  been,  (if  the  rhyme  permitted,)  "  What  pangs  my 
bosom  rend  V  The  simplicity  of  the  expression  matters 
little  if  it  fulfils  the  purpose  of  the  author  ;  and  it  is  of  no 
consequence  how  common  the  words  may  be,  if  they  are 
only  the  surface  to  a  mine  of  thought.  The  great  object 
of  poetry  is,  to  suggest  more  than  she  expresses,  and  espe- 
cially at  the  close  of  a  strain,  she  is  fortunate  if  she  can 
leave  food  for  reflection.  The  contrast  between  the  care- 
less indifference  of  the  world  in  general,  and  the  intense 
feeling  of  the  poet  who  has  lost  all  that  was  his  world,  is 
perfectly  indicated  in  the  concluding  stanza;  and  what 
more  could  we  wish?  The  last  line  is  the  motto  to  a 
golden  casket  of  once-treasured  hopes  and  tender  memo- 
ries ; — what  more  could  we  wish  1  To  pursue  a  little 
farther  the  train  of  thoughts  which  it  excites.  Words- 
worth says,  in  another  poem, 

"  You  must  love  him,  ere  to  you 
He  will  seem  worthy  of  your  love." 

This  is  perfectly  true  to  nature.  Love  not  only  invests  its 
objects  with  imaginary  attributes,  but  actually  does  per- 


WORDSWORTH.  315 

ceive  those  which  exist,  but  which  arc  not  visible  to  an 
indifferent  eye.  Friendship  possesses  some  of  this  intui- 
tive discernment.  But  how  much  is  her  spiritual  percep- 
tion heightened  by  love !  When  the  reciprocal  action  of 
the  sensual  and  intellectual  powers  produce  what  may  be 
called  (almost  with  propriety)  an  additional  sense,  the 
mental  glance  becomes  like  the  sun  in  heaven,  not  only 
penetrating  all  mysteries  by  its  light,  but  calling  forth 
dormant  faculties  from  their  slumber  by  its  warmth.  It 
was  the  torch  of  Love  which  animated  the  statue  of  Pyg- 
malion ; — to  others,  perhaps,  the  statue  was  but  marble 
still.  How  singular  is  the  feeling  we  experience,  when 
we  think  that  the  being  whom  we  love  is  nothing  toothers, 
every  thing  to  ourselves — that  others  see  daily  with  indif- 
ference the  form,  whose  shadow  even  to  behold  for  a  few 
moments  is  to  us  happiness  unspeakable  !  To  the  world, 
the  object  of  our  love  is  merely  a  human  being — to  us, 
somewhat  above  mortality.  This  may  be  an  image  to 
you,  but  it  is  a  saint  to  me,  says  the  Catholic.  No  author 
has  expressed  this  union  of  earthly  with  divine  with  greater 
depth  than  Wordsworth.  His  women  are,  to  use  his  own 
beautiful  language, 

"  Creatures  not  too  bright  or  good 

For  human  nature's  daily  food  ; 
And  yet  are  spirits  too,  and  bright, 
With  something  of  an  angel  light." 

Only  hear  how  forcibly  he  depicts  the  waking  from  the 
security  into  which  this  feeling  lulls  us,  when  our  dream 
of  unearthly  charms  is  tremendously  broken  by  the  shock 
of  death  : 

"  A  slumber  did  my  spirit  seal, 
I  had  no  human  fears  : 
She  seem'd  a  thing  that  could  not  feel 
The  touch  of  earthly  years. 

No  motion  has  she  now,  no  force. 

She  neither  hears,  nor  sees, 
Roll'd  round  in  earth's  diurnal  course 

With  rocks,  and  stones,  and  trees." 


316  Wilson's  3iiscellaneous  writings. 

Here,  how  much  is  said  in  little — how  many  themes  for 
reflection  are  suggested  !  That  fo'rm,  which  the  imagina- 
tive colouring  of  real  passion  had  invested  with  immortality, 
is  now  no  more  than  the  inanimate  productions  of  nature. 
Once  the  living  vehicle  of  the  soul,  and  almost  identified 
with  it,  in  the  wondrous  motions  of  eye  and  lip,  it  is  now 
immoveable  and  impassive  as  the  solid  rocks  !  It  is  a  sub- 
ject too  painful  to  dwell  upon.  Let  us  revive  ourselves  by 
the  following  fresh  picture  of  life  and  loveliness : 

"  She  was  a  phantom  of  delight, 
When  first  she  gleam'd  upon  my  sight; 
A  lovely  apparition  sent 
To  be  a  moment's  ornament ; 
Her  eyes  as  slurs  of  twilight  fair. 
Like  tioilighCs  too  her  dusky  hair  ; 
But  all  things  else  about  her  drawn 
From  May-time  and  the  cheerful  dawn.''^ 

Who  does  not  see  the  beautiful  girl  moving  in  the  light  of 
poetry  and  youth ;  and  bringing  gladness  with  her  as  surely 
as  the  morning-star  leads  on  the  day  ?  "  Well,  I  must  say," 
the  soft  voice  replies,  "  I  had  no  idea  that  Wordsworth  had 
written  such  sweet  things.  I  shall  tell  all  my  friends  what 
a  poet  he  is,  and  shall  buy  his  works  directly." 

I  should  exceed  the  limits  which  I  have  prescribed  to 
myself,  were  I  to  give  extracts  from  any  more  of  Words- 
worth's poems,  which  display  a  pathetic  simplicity.  The 
reader  will  do  well  to  peruse,  at  his  own  leisure,  "  The 
Childless  Father,"  "  Lucy  Gray,"  "  We  are  Seven,"  and 
the  story  of  "  Ruth."  \  think  that  he  will  not  only  be 
struck  with  the  lovely  thoughts  in  these  poems,  but  with 
the  easy  melody  of  their  versification.  Every  word  seems 
to  fall  naturally  into  its  right  place,  and  the  rhyme  ap- 
pears to  be  less  a  preparation  of  art,  than  a  necessary 
consequence  of  the  diction. 

Another  characteristic  of  Wordsworth's  muse  is  a  cer- 
tain classical  dignity.  Persons,  who  are  acquainted  with 
his  works  by  quotation  only,  or  by  report,  can  scarcely  be 
aware  how  often,  and  how  strikingly,  he  has  disi)layed  this 
excellence.     So  much  injustice  has  he  done  himself.    The 


WORDSWORTH.  317 

Laodamia  is  known  but  by  a  few — by  those  alone,  who, 
being  gifted  with  a  real  afTection  for  poetry,  have  atten- 
tively studied  and  searched  the  writings  of  our  true  poets, 
and  have  formed  their  own  opinions,  without  respect  to  the 
popular  voice.  They  have  already  assigned  the  Laoda- 
mia a  high  rank  amongst  poems  of  a  severe  and  intellec- 
tual beauty.  It  is  a  perfect  piece  of  statuary,  elaborated 
with  Phidian  skill,  and  its  repose,  like  that  of  "  the  statue 
which  enchants  the  world,"  is  the  repose  of  life.  As  the 
effect  of  this  fine  composition  depends  more  upon  the  gran- 
deur and  harmony  of  the  whole,  than  upon  the  beauty  of 
detached  parts,  I  should  only  mar  the  impression  which  it 
is  calculated  to  produce  on  the  mind  of  the  classic  reader, 
by  presenting  him  with  a  specimen  of  its  excellence.  This 
would  be  to  exhibit  a  stone  of  the  temple,  in  order  to  dis- 
play the  proportions  of  the  temple  itself.  I  will  rather 
give  entire  the  following  sonnet,  as  an  example  of  the 
chaste  severity  of  Wordsworth's  loftier  style  : 

"  Milton  !  thou  shouldst  be  living  at  this  hour; 
England  hath  need  of  thee  !     She  is  a  fen 
Of  stagnant  waters:  altar,  sword,  and  pen, 
Fireside,  the  heroic  wealth  of  hall  and  bower, 
Have  forfeited  tiieir  ancient  English  dower 
Of  inward  happiness.     We  are  selfish  men ; — 
Oh  raise  us  up  !     Return  to  us  again ; 
And  give  us  manners,  virtue,  freedom,  power  ! 
Thy  soul  tens  like  a  star,  and  dwelt  apart: 
Thou  kudsl  a  voice,  whose  sound  teas  like  the  sea, 
Pure  as  the  naked  heavens,  majestic,  free  ; 
So  didst  thou  travel  on  life's  common  way 
In  cheerful  godliness;  and  yet  thy  heart 
The  lowliest  duties  on  herself  did  lay." 

Surely  this  is  great  writing.  There  is  no  affectation,  no 
babyism  here.  The  poet  has  girded  his  robe  about  him, 
and  has  prepared  himself  for  a  lofty  encounter.  The  portion 
marked  by  italics  is,  in  particular,  grand,  from  the  very 
simplicity  of  its  thought  and  diction.  The  most  sublime 
objects  in  nature  are  chosen  to  illustrate  the  author's  noble 
ideas;  and,  in  the  short  compass  of  three  lines,  "ocean, 
with  all  its  solemn  noise,"  and  the  illimitable  firmament, 
27* 


318  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

are  presented  to  the  ear  and  eye.  An  inferior  writer 
would  have  dilated  upon  the  thought:  Wordsworth  knew 
that  an  inch  of  gold  is  better  than  a  yard  of  gold  leaf. 
The  conclusion  of  the  sonnet  conveys,  by  a  few  touches, 
the  striking  picture  of  a  majestic  mind,  unbending  towards 
the  world,  yet  reverencing  itself;  and  thus  completes  the 
magnificence  of  poetry  with  the  important  truth — that 
humility  is  the  basis  of  moral  grandeur.  Wordsworth's 
Ode  to  Duty  may  be  mentioned  as  another  instance  of  this 
purity  of  thought  and  of  expression.  The  following  stanza 
is  very  noble : 

"  Stern  lawgiver !  yet  thou  dost  wear 
The  Godhead's  most  benignant  grace; 
Nor  know  we  any  thing  so  fair 
As  is  tlie  smile  upon  thy  flice  : 
Flowers  laugh  before  thee  on  tlieir  beds, 
And  fragrance  in  thy  footing  treads." 

Both  as  a  moral  and  as  a  religious  poet,  Wordsworth 
may  take  a  high  station.  In  the  latter  point  of  view,  more 
especially,  his  name  may  not  only  be  associated  with  those 
of  Young  and  Cowper,  but  even  with  that  of  Milton  ;  for, 
except  in  the  works  of  the  above-named  writers,  we  shall 
search  vainly,  through  the  English  classics,  for  passages 
of  devotional  fervour  expressed  as  finely  as  many  which 
Wordsworth  has  given  us.  A  poem,  called  "  Resolution 
and  Independence,"  may  serve  to  display  our  author  as  a 
moralist  of  a  very  different  stamp  to  the  mere  casuist, 
whom  (snatching  for  once  the  pencil  of  satire)  he  stigma- 
tises as 

"  One  to  whose  sinooth-rubb'd  soul  can  cling, 
Nor  form,  nor  feelinir,  great  nor  siilall; 
A  reasoning,  self-sniricing  thing. 
An  intellectual  all  in  all !" 

The  poem  opens  with  a  fresh  and  beautiful  description  of 
a  calm  and  bright  morning  succeeding  to  a  night  of  storms. 
All  nature  is  revived — "the  birds  are  singing  in  the  dis- 
tant woods,"  and 

"  All  things  that  love  the  sun  arc  out  of  doors; 
The  sky  rejoices  in  the  morning's  birth  ; 


WORDSWORTH.  319 

The  grass  is  bright  witli  rain-drops ;  on  the  moors 
The  hare  is  running  races  in  her  mirth." 

With  this  morning  jubilee  of  creation  the  poet  at  first 
sympathizes,  but  by  degrees  he  falls  into  a  train  of  melan- 
choly and  anxious  thought.  He  compares  his  f)ito  with 
that  of  the  happy  creatures  round  him — the  skylark  war- 
bling in  the  sky,  and  the  playful  hare — and  he  feels  that 
he  only  resembles  them  in  his  present  exemption  from  care 
and  sorrow.  Happy  as  he  now  is,  he  cannot  forbear  from 
casting  a  prospective  look  towards  evils,  to  which  his  pre- 
sent state  of  security,  and  the  changefulness  of  this  mortal 
life  seem  to  render  him  peculiarly  liable.  Even  his  poeti- 
cal feelings  seem  to  point  him  out  as  a  mark  for  the  arrows 
of  misfortune.  He  muses  painfully  upon  the  fate  of  ge- 
nius in  every  age,  and  more  especially  he 

"Thought  of  Chatterton,  the  marvellous  boy, 
The  sleepless  soul  that  perish'd  in  his  pride, — 
Of  him  who  walk'd  in  glory  and  in  joy, 
Following  his  plough  along  the  mountain  side." 

In  this  mood,  he  meets  with  an  old  man  whose  employ- 
ment is  that  of  a  leech-gatherer;  the  infirmities  of  disease 
and  age  having  precluded  him  from  any  more  active  mode 
of  gaining  his  subsistence.     Of  him  it  is  finely  said, — 

"  Motionless  as  a  cloud  the  old  man  stood. 
That  heareth  not  the  loud  winds  when  they  call." 

The  poet  is  mucli  struck  with  the  apparently  wretched 
occupation  of  one,  on  whose  form  time  and  pain  seemed  to 
have  cast,  "  a  more  than  human  weight."  But,  on  con- 
versing with  the  leech-gatherer,  he  finds  him  not  only 
resigned  to  his  lot,  but  cheerful.  The  content  of  this  man, 
as  contrasted  with  his  own  recent  doubts,  and  anxious 
forebodings,  strongly  impresses  the  poet's  mind  with  an 
important  lesson  of  trust  in  Providence.     He  says — 

"The  man  did  seem 
Like  one  whom  I  had  met  with  in  a  dream ; 
Or  like  a  man  from  some  tar  region  sent, 
To  give  mc  human  strength  by  strong  admonishment." 


320  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

The  leech-gatherer's  words  have  the  more  effect  upon 
his  imagination,  inasmuch  as  they  are 

"  With  something  of  a  lofty  utterance  drest, 
Choice  word  and  measured  phrase ;  above  the  reach 
Of  ordinary  men." 

The  poem  thus  concludes  : — 

"  When  he  ended, 
I  could  have  laugh'd  myself  to  scorn  to  find 
In  that  decrepit  man  so  firm  a  mind. 
God,  said  I,  be  my  help  and  stay  secure, 
I'll  think  of  the  leech-gatherer  on  the  lonely  moor." 

Wordsworth  may  be  said,  in  this  composition,  to  have 
drawn,  from  the  simplest  elements,  fine  imagery  and  a 
noble  moral.  There  is  something  exceedingly  striking 
in  the  figure  of  the  old  man  standing  motionless  on  the 
solitary  moor.  It  seems  peculiarly  adapted  to  the  pur- 
poses of  painting,  and  has  indeed  been  occasionally  chosen 
by  artists  as  a  subject  for  their  pencil. 

Of  VVordsworth's  devotional  poetry,  the  following  pas- 
sage from  the  Excursion,  although  slightly  tinged  with 
the  Platonism  of  his  creed,  is  perhaps  as  fine  an  example 
as  can  be  cited  : 

"  Thou,  dread  source, 
Prime  self-existing  cause  and  end  of  all. 
That,  in  the  scale  of  being,  fill  their  place. 
Above  our  human  region,  or  below. 
Set  and  sustain'd  ; — Thou — who  didst  wrap  the  cloud 
Of  infancy  around  us,  that  Thyself, 
Therein,  with  our  simplicity  awhile 
JNIightst  hold  communion  undisturb'd — 
Who,  from  the  anarchy  of  dreaming  sleep. 
Or  from  its  death-like  void,  v.'ith  punctual  care. 
And  touch  as  gentle  as  the  morning  light, 
Restor'st  us  daily  to  the  power  of  sense. 
And  reason's  steadfast  rule, — Thou,  Thou  alone 
Art  everlasting,  and  the  blessed  spirits. 
Which  thou  includest,  as  the  sea  her  waves." 

I  should  say,  that  the  muse  of  Wordsworth  appears  to 


WORDSWORTH.  321 

breathe  her  native  air,  when  she  attunes  her  voice  to 
strains  like  these.  How  singular,  that  the  author  of  the 
Lyrical  Ballads  should  seem  to  be  most  at  home  in  grave 
and  lofty  numbers  !  Yet  such  is  the  fact:  Wordsworth 
will  be  venerated  as  a  moral  and  religious  poet,  when,  as 
a  theorist,  he  will  be  sunk  into  oblivion. 

But  it  is  chiefly  by  his  sonnets  that  Wordsworth  will 
be  known  to  posterity.     Boileau  says, — 

"Un  sonnet  sans  defaut  vaut  seul  un  long  poeme, 
Mais  en  vain  mille  auteurs  y  pensent  arriver; 

A  peine 

— Peut  on  admirer  deux  ou  trois  entre  mille." 

If  we  consider  how  many  have  attempted,  and  how  few 
have  succeeded  in  this  species  of  composition,  we  shall  ac- 
knowledge the  truth  of  the  latter  part  of  the  above  asser- 
tion. The  very  shortness  of  the  sonnet  is  its  difficulty. 
Like  the  man  who  had  not  time  to  write  a  short  letter,  many 
authors,  more  especially  in  the  present  day,  seem  to  have 
no  leisure  to  condense  their  thoughts.  They  are  able,  in- 
deed, to  pour  out  their  unpremeditated  verse  with  much 
facility  ;  and  if  they  be  men  of  real  talent,  some  merit  will 
undoubtedly  be  found  in  their  compositions ;  but  this  merit 
must  necessarily  be  of  an  expanded  kind.  Water  runs 
apace — richer  potations  issue  more  slowly  from  the  cask. 
Now  a  sonnet  is  worth  nothing  unless  it  condense  the 
elasticity  of  thought  into  its  own  small  compass.  We  do 
not  require  that  a  hogshead  should  be  filled  with  ottar  of 
roses ;  but  we  do  demand  that  the  small  and  portable  vial 
should  contain  a  precious  essence.  When  we  read  the 
sonnets  of  Milton,  or  of  Warton,  we  feel  that  each  of  them 
is  the  I'esult  of  more  thought,  and  more  tends  to  produce 
thought  in  others,  than  many  a  long  poem  which  has  is- 
sued from  a  mind  of  weaker  stuff.  On  this  ground,  more 
than  on  account  of  their  nonconformity  to  the  sonnet  rules, 
I  should  deny  the  name  of  sonnet  to  the  compositions  of 
Bowles,  or  Mrs.  Charlotte  Smith.  They  may  be  pretty 
songs,  or  pathetic  elegies,  but  they  are  not  sonnets.  They 
were  popular,  for  they  neither  resulted  from  deep  thought, 
nor  required  deep  thought  for  the  comprehension  of  them. 
The  sonnets  of  Shakspeare  and  Milton  (however  admired 


322  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

by  the  few)  have  never  been  popular,  because  they  ad- 
dress themselves  to  the  understanding  as  well  as  the  heart, 
to  the  imagination  rather  than  to  the  fancy.  Of  this 
stamp  are  the  sonnets  of  Wordsworth.  They  may  there- 
fore fail  to  delight  the  popular  palate  in  an  equal  degree 
with  (as  some  wit  called  them)  "Mrs.  Charlotte  Smith's 
whipt  syllabubs  in  black  glasses  ;"  but  they  will  be  dear 
to  the  lovers  of  original  excellence  as  long  as  any  think- 
ing minds  can  be  found  in  the  community.  They  will  be 
remembered — for  there  is  something  in  a  good  sonnet 
peculiarly  rememberable.  "  Brevity,"  says,  Shakspeai'e, 
"  is  the  soul  of  wit ;"  and  inasmuch  as  the  soul  survives 
the  body,  condensed  wisdom  also  possesses  a  principle  of 
longevity  beyond  the  "  thews  and  outward  flourishes"  of 
wordy  rhetoric.  Proverbs  live,  while  whole  epics  perish. 
Amongst  Wordsworth's  miscellaneous  sonnets  (and  they 
are  numerous)  there  is  scarcely  one  which  is  not  good — 
there  are  many  which  are  strikingly  fine.  They  are  all 
written  after  the  strictest  model  of  the  legitimate  sonnet, 
which,  from  its  artful  construction  and  repeated  rhymes, 
presents  many  difficulties  to  the  composer ;  and  yet  there 
is  an  ease  in  Wordsworth's  management  of  the  sonnet, 
which  proves  that  this  is  a  kind  of  composition  the  most 
congenial,  the  most  fitted  to  his  powers.  The  lines  are 
sufficiently  broken  to  prevent  the  repetition  of  the  same 
rhymes  from  palling  on  the  ear;  yet  not  so  much  as  al- 
together to  prevent  their  recurrence  from  being  perceived, 
(a  fault  by  no  means  uncommon,)  so  as  to  confound  the 
distinction  between  rhyme  and  blank  verse.  The  subjects 
are  varied ;  and  from  Wordsworth's  sonnets  it  would  be 
easy  to  select  specimens  of  the  descriptive,  the  pathetic, 
the  playful,  the  majestic,  the  fanciful,  the  imaginative.  I 
have  already  presented  my  reader  with  a  glorious  example 
of  Wordsworth's  majestic  style,  in  the  sonnet  to  Milton.  I 
will  now,  therefore,  confine  myself  to  one  other  specimen, 
which  appears  to  me  to  combine  many  of  the  characte- 
ristics which  I  have  mentioned  distinctively  above  : 

"Where  lies  the  land  to  which  yon  ship  must  go  ■? 
Festively  she  puts  forth  in  trim  array, 


WORDSWORTH.  323 

As  vigorous  as  a  lark  at  break  of  day  : 

Is  she  for  tropic  suns  or  polar  snow  1 

What  boots  th'  inquiry  ! — Neither  friend  nor  foe 

She  cares  for ;  let  her  travel  where  she  may, 

She  finds  familiar  names,  a  beaten  way 

Ever  before  her,  and  a  wind  to  blow. 

Yet  still  I  ask,  what  haven  is  her  mark  1 

And  almost  as  it  was  when  ships  were  rare, 

(From  time  to  time,  like  pilgrims,  here  and  there 

Crossing  the  waters,)  doubt  and  something  dark, 

Of  the  old  sea  some  reverential  fear 

Is  with  me  at  thy  farewell,  joyous  bark!" 

Here  we  have  beautiful  description,  majesty  of  numbers, 
a  lively  fancy,  a  touch  of  pathos,  and  a  fine  exercise  of 
the  imaginative  powers.  I  cannot  conclude  this  branch  of 
my  subject,  without  pointing  out  to  the  reader's  notice, 
more  especially,  Wordsworth's  Introductory  Sonnet,  that 
on  the  extinction  of  the  Venetian  Republic,  and  the  series 
of  Sonnets  on  the  river  Duddon.  That,  in  particular, 
which  begins, 

"  Hail,  twilight,  sovereign  of  one  peaceful  hour,"  ' 

is  a  fine  instance  of  the  vigour  with  which  an  original  mind 
can  refresh  a  hackneyed  theme.  It  is  rather  unlike  the 
sonnets  of  young  ladies  and  young  masters  on  the  same 
subject. 

The  reader  has  now  before  him  the  claims  of  Words- 
worth (fairly  stated,  as  I  hope)  to  public  notice.  That  he 
is  a  true  poet,  no  one,  who  has  read  the  extracts  which  I 
have  given  from  his  works,  can  for  a  moment  doubt.  He 
is  not  a  mere  versifier,  who  rhymes  away  the  vacant  hour. 
He  is  not  a  mere  trifler  in  the  art,  who  amongst  other 
elegant  studies,  resorts  to  poetry  as  a  recreation.  It  is 
evident  that  poetry  has  been  to  him  "  the  stuff  of  which 
his  life  is  wrought."  In  spite  of  his  attempts  to  identify 
poetry  and  prose,  he  cannot  think  in  prose,  he  cannot 
write  in  prose.  He  is  all  over  poetical  feeling.  A  poet 
he  was  born,  and  a  poet  he  will  die.  Let  him  speak  of 
himself  in  his  early  days  : 

"  I  cannot  paint 
What  then  I  was.     The  sounding  cataract 


324  Wilson's  jiiscellaneous  writings. 

Haunted  mc  like  a  passion  :  the  tall  rock, 
The  mountain,  and  the  deep  and  gloomy  wood 
Their  colours  and  their  forms,  were  then  to  me 
An  appetite:  a  feeling-,  and  a  love." 

Tintern  Abbey. 

Let  him  exhibit  himseli'at  a  later  period  : 

"  Life's  autumn  past,  T  stand  on  winter's  verge, 
And  daily  lose  what  I  desire  to  keep : 
Yet  rather  would  1  instantly  decline 
To  the  traditionary  sympathies 

Of  a  most  rustic  ignorance, 

than  see  and  hear 

The  repetitions  wearisome  of  sense. 

Where  soul  is  dead,  and  feeling  hath  no  place." 

Can  any  one  doubt  that  this  man  is  a  poet  1  The  young 
and  fervent,  wlio  admire  Lord  Byron's  intense  enthusiasm 
in  the  perception  of  external  nature,  know  not  how  much 
of  it  was  kindled  at  Wordsworth's  altar.  In  the  noble 
author's  works,  they  may  have  met  with  many  a  con- 
temptuous sarcasm  on  Wordsworth  and  his  poetry.  They 
ought  to  be  informed,  that  these  expressions  of  contempt 
and  dislike  are  but  the  results  of  the  natural  tendency  of 
men  to  hate  their  benefactors.  Perhaps  also  something  of 
good  policy  mingled  with  a  bitterer  feeling.  Lord  Byron 
might  wish  to  make  it  seem  impossible  that  he  should  bor- 
row from  one  whom  he  despised  so  Iieartily.  But  it  was 
a  part  of  Lord  Byron's  daring  character,  never  to  be  de- 
terred from  seizing  upon  any  materials,  which  suited  his 
purpose,  by  the  fear  of  detection.  In  these  things,  to  put 
a  good  face  upon  the  matter  is  half  the  battle.  Thus — 
whether  it  was  that  he  thought  that  the  boldest  thieves  are 
ever  the  least  suspected,  or  that  his  contemptuous  appre- 
ciation of  liis  contemporaries,  led  him  to  believe  that  pos- 
terity would  rather  suppose  that  they  plundered  from  him, 
than  he  from  them, — as  Ben  .lonson  says,  "  would  deem  it 
to  be  his  as  well  as  theirs," — or  even,  perhaps,  that  his 
works  alone  would  survive  to  future  ages — certain  it  is, 
that  instead  of  timidly  and  laboriously  pilfering  from  old 
and  obscure  authors.  Lord  Byron  at  once  appropriated  to 
himself  the  finest  thoughts  of  livina;  writers.     Whenever  a 


WORDSWORTH.  325 

peculiarly  original  idea  was  started,  it  was  sure  to  appear 
on  the  next  published  pages  of  Lord  Byron.  Thus,  when 
Montgomery  sang, 

"  lie  only,  like  the  oceaii-weed  uptorn, 
And  loose  along  the  world  of  waters  borne, 
Was  cast  companionless  from  wave  to  wave," 

Lord  Byron  echoed, 

"  I  am  as  the  weed 
Torn  from  the  rock  on  ocean's  foam  to  sail. 
Where'er  the  surge  may  sweep,  the  tempest's  breath  prevail." 

With  regard  to  Lord  Byron's  obligations  to  Wordsworth, 
they  are  less  verbal,  and  therefore  less  palpable ;  but  no 
one,  who  is  acquainted  with  the  works  of  the  two  authors, 
can  doubt  but  that  Wordsworth  is  to  be  traced  most  pal- 
pably through  the  third  and  fourth  cantos  of  Childe 
Harold.  A  poem,  by  Lord  Byron,  called  the  "  Grave  of 
Churchill,"  a  fact  literally  rendered,  is  in  its  style  a  close 
copy  of  Wordsworth's  "  Resolution  and  Independence," 
from  which  I  have  given  extracts.  In  a  wonderfully  fine 
passage  in  the  Excursion,  Wordsworth  desires  to  "surren- 
der himself  to  the  elements,"  as  if  he  "  were  a  spirit,"  and 
extlaims — 

"  While  the  mists 
Flying,  and  rainy  vapours  call  out  shapes 
And  pliantoms  from  the  crags  and  solid  earth 
As  fast  as  a  musician  scatters  sounds 
Out  of  an  instrument     ... 

What  a  joy  to  roam 

An  equal  amongst  mightiest  energies !" 

Lord  Byron  seems  to  have  had  this  in  his  thoughts,  when 
■  he  made  Manfred  say — 

"  Oh  that  I  were 
The  viewless  spirit  of  a  lovely  sound  ! 

Born  and  dying 

With  the  blest  tone  that  made  me." 

The  difference  is  only  that   Wordsworth's   hopeful  and 
cheering  idea  has  become  desponding   and   gloomy,   in 
passing  through  the  alembic  of  Lord  Byron's  brain.     In 
VOL.  I.  28 


326  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

the  one  case  it  is  the  wish  of  a  believing  philosopher, 
exulting  in  the  immortality  which  he  feels  to  be  his  own  : 
in  the  other,  of  an  infidel  voluptuary,  jaded  down  to  a 
prayer  for  annihilation.  I  mention  these  things  to  prove 
that  persons,  who  admire  (and  justly)  Lord  Byron  for  the 
vigour  of  his  verse,  do  most  unjustly  accuse  Wordsworth 
of  feebleness  and  puerility  ;  and  that  while  they  quote  with 
rapture,  passages,  which  are  at  least  suggested  by  Words- 
worth's poetry,  they  are  unconsciously  doing  honour  to 
the  genius  of  the  latter. 

Having  now  brouglit  my  defence  to  a  close,  I  have  only 
to  repeat  that,  if  my  reader  is  of  the  same  opinion  as  my- 
self, he  will  not  quarrel  with  me  for  having  quoted  so 
largely  from  Wordsworth's  poems.  In  reading  works  of 
criticism,  I  have  generally  found  that  I  enjoyed  the  extracts 
more  than  the  critical  commentary ;  and  I  can  easily 
imagine,  that  the  reader  will  peruse  these  pages  with  a 
similar  feeling. 

In  conclusion,  let  me  briefly  recapitulate  my  reasons, 
both  for  denying  Wordsworth  a  place  amongst  the  greatest 
of  our  national  poets,  and  for  assigning  him  a  high  station 
amongst  the  band  of  true  poets  in  general. 

He  has  not  produced  any  one  great,  original,  and  con- 
sistent work,  or  even  any  one  poem  of  consequence,  to 
which  all  these  epithets  can,  with  justice,  be  collectively 
a])plicd.  The  want  of  a  fixed  style,  the  inequality  of  his 
compositions,  the  exuberant  verbosity  of  some,  and  the 
eccentric  meanness  of  others:  the  striking  deficiency, 
which  his  works  usually  display,  in  judgment — a  quality 
essential  to  the  attainment  of  first-rate  excellence — are  all 
so  many  barriers  betwixt  Wordsworth  and  the  summit  of 
fame.  Although  it  perhaps  may  be  allowed,  that  Milton  is 
the  only  poet  who  exceeds  Wordsworth  in  devotional  sub- 
limity ;  yet,  when  we  consider  the  universal  excellence  of 
the  former  in  all  that  he  has  attempted — when  we  look 
upon  him  as  the  author  of  our  great  epic — it  never 
can  be  conceded,  that  posterity  will  assign  the  latter  a  sta- 
tion beside  him. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  variety  of  subjects,  which 
Wordsworth  has  touched  ;  the  varied  powers  which  he  has 
displayed;  the  passages  of  redeeming  beauty  interspersed 


WORDSWORTH.  327 

even  amongst  the  worst  and  the  dullest  of  his  productions  ; 
the  originality  of  detached  thoughts  scattered  tliroughout 
works,  to  which,  on  the  whole,  wc  must  deny  the  praise 
of  originality  ;  the  deep  pathos,  and  occasional  grandeur  of 
his  lyre;  the  real  poetical  feeling  which  generally  runs 
through  its  many  modulations  ;  his  accurate  observation  of 
external  nature ;  and  the  success  with  which  he  blends  the 
purest  and  most  devotional  thoughts  with  the  glories  of  the 
visible  universe — all  these  arc  merits,  which  so  far  "  make 
up  in  number  what  they  want  in  weight,"  that,  although 
insufficient  to  raise  him  to  the  shrine,  they  fairly  admit 
him  within  the  sacred  temple  of  poesy.  While  Shakspeare 
is  pinnacled  at  almost  an  invisible  height,  "  sole-sitting" 
where  others  "  dare  not  soar ;"  while  Milton,  Spenser, 
Thomson,  and  Collins,  "  aye  sing  around  the  cloudy 
throne ;"  Wordsworth  may  join  the  numerous  and  radiant 
band,  who  occupy  the  less  daring  heights  of  Parnassus, 
rifle  its  caves  of  "  mildly-gleaming  ore,"  arrange  its 
flowers  and  turf  into  gardens  of  artificial  beauty ;  or,  as 
our  poet,  "snatch  a  grace  beyond  the  reach  of  art"  from 
the  rocks  and  waterfalls  that  grace  its  wilder  recesses. 


POETRY  OF  THE  PRESENT  DAY. 

(Blackwood's  Edinburgh  Magazine,  1830.) 


The  age  in  which  wc  live  has  been  fruitful  of  poetical 
works ;  we  may  venture  to  say,  that  it  has  been  fruitful 
of  poets.  Thei'e  has  been  no  period,  we  believe,  of  our 
literature,  since  the  age  of  Elizabeth,  that  has  been  marked 
by  such  an  overflow  of  poetry.  For  although,  through 
the  whole  of  the  intervening  time,  we  may  observe  that  the 
vein  of  poetry  has  been  prevalent  in  the  English  nation,  (we 
do  not  now  speak  of  our  own  before  that  incorporation  of 
the  literature  of  the  two  countries,  which  the  last  half 
century  has  witnessed,)  allhough,  on  looking  back,  we 
recognise  at  every  step  familiar  and  honourable,  and  some 
illustrious  names  of  the  English  Parnassus,  yet  we  find  at 
no  time  so  many  together  of  high  distinction.  And  least 
of  all  do  we  find  any  number  at  one  time ;  we  find, 
indeed,  few  altogether  to  whom  the  language  of  verse  is 
the  language  of  imagination  and  passion.  At  no  other 
period  was  the  whole  literature  of  the  land  tinged,  colour- 
ed, and  vivified  with  poetry.  It  will  be  matter  of  curious 
speculation  to  those  who  shall  write  the  later  history  of 
English  literature,  to  trace  out  the  causes,  while  they 
mark  the  periods  of  the  different  appearances  which  our 
])oetry  has  put  on  ;  and  to  explain  how  a  people,  adapted 
in  their  character  for  poetry,  and  at  all  times  loving  it  in 
all  its  shapes,  should  have  departed  frequently  so  far  from 
its  genuine  character,  and  from  its  impassioned  spirit.  In 
Milton,  the  power  of  poetry  seemed  to  expire;  not  merely 
because  no  voice  like  his  was  heard,  when  his  own  voice 
had  ceased ;  but  because  the  very  purposes  of  poetry  seemed 
changed  ;  and  the  demesnes  of  verse  to  be  subjected  to 


POETRY    OF    THE    PRESENT    DAY.  329 

Other  faculties  and  the  sceptre  passed  into  unlineal  hands, 
Milton,  like  his  great  predecessors,  drew  his  poetry  from 
the  depths  of  his  own  spirit  brooding  over  nature  and 
hinnan  life.  But  for  the  race  that  succeeded,  it  seemed  as 
if  a  veil  had  fallen  between  nature  and  the  poets  eyes  ;  as 
if  that  world,  which  by  its  visible  glory  feeds  inspiration, 
had,  like  the  city  of  Ad,  been  wrapped  in  darkness  from 
the  eyes  of  men,  and  they  had  known  of  it  only  in  sur- 
viving traditions.  Excepting  Thomson  alone,  who  is  there 
among  our  poets,  in  the  space  between  that  race  which 
died  in  Milton,  and  the  age  of  poetry  which  has  since 
sprung  up  almost  with  our  own  generation — who  among 
them  is  there  that  seems  to  stand  beholding  the  world  of 
nature  and  of  man,  and  chanting  to  men  the  voice  of  his 
visions,  a  strain  that,  like  a  bright  reflection  of  lovely 
imagery,  discloses  to  the  minds  of  others  the  impressions 
that  fall  beautiful  and  numberless  on  his  own?  Even 
Collins,  pure,  sweet,  and  ethereal — though  his  song  in  its 
rapture  commerces  with  the  skies,  and  though  a  wild  and 
melancholy  beauty  from  his  own  spirit  passes  upon  all  the 
forms  of  nature  and  of  life  that  he  touches — though  there 
might  seem  to  be,  therefore,  a  perfect  inspiration  in  his 
poetry,  yet  does  he  not  rather  give  to  nature  than  receive 
from  her?  Does  he  speak  under  the  strong  constraint 
of  a  passion  drawn  from  the  living  world,  and  though 
changed  and  exalted  in  the  poet's  mind,  yet  bearing  with 
it,  as  it  rushes  out  in  his  song,  the  imperishable  elements 
from  which  it  was  composed '/  Or  does  it  not  rather  seem 
to  be  the  voice  of  a  spirit  which  does  not  feed  on  the 
breath  of  this  world,  but  has  thinly  veiled  from  human 
apprehension  the  thoughts  and  feelings  of  its  own  spiritual 
being,  in  imagery  of  that  world  which  is  known  to  men? 
And  of  that  imagery  how  much  is  supplied  to  him  from 
other  poets?  We  dare  not  say  that  nature  was  veiled 
from  his  sight ;  the  feeling  in  wjiich  he  speaks  is  so  tender, 
native,  and  pure.  He  has  caught  from  her  hues  and 
ethereal  forms  ;  but  surely  we  may  say,  that  he  does  not 
speak  as  a  passionate  lover  of  nature.  He  does  not  speak 
as  one  to  whom  Nature,  in  all  her  aspects  and  moods,  is 
health  and  life ;  whose  soul  by  delighted  verse  is  wedded 
to  the  world  ;  but  by  the  force  of  its  own  inherent  creative 
28* 


330  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

power  changes  into  new  shapes,  and  brings  forth  into  new 
existence,  its  own  impressions  from  outward  creation. 

A  generation  of  poets  has  appeared  in  our  day,  who  have 
gone  back  to  nature  ;  and  have  sought  the  elements  of 
poetry  immediately  in  the  world  of  nature  and  of  human 
life.  Cowper  was  perhaps  the  first.  The  charm  of  his 
poetry  is  a  pure,  innocent,  lovely  mind,  delighting  itself  in 
pure,  innocent  and  lovely  nature ; — the  freshness  of  the 
fields,  the  fragrance  of  the  flowers,  breathes  in  his  verse. 
His  own  delight  in  simple,  happy,  rural  life,  is  there;  and 
we  are  delighted,  as,  with  happy  faces,  and  with  endeared 
familiar  love  we  walked  by  his  side,  and  shared  with  him 
in  his  pleasures.  How  shall  we  speak  of  Burns?  Of  him 
whose  poetry,  so  full  of  himself,  is  almost  one  impassioned 
strain  of  delight  in  nature,  and  in  the  life  he  drew  from 
her  breast?  Of  him,  ploughman  as  he  was,  whose  en- 
nobling songs  have  fed  with  thought,  and  lifted  up  with 
passion,  the  minds  of  the  high  born  and  the  learned? 
But  all  the  poets  who  now  occupy  the  places  of  eminence 
in  the  literature  of  the  island,  many  and  high  in  talents 
as  they  arc,  it  may  be  said  generally,  that  the  great  cha- 
racter of  their  poetry  is,  that  return  to  the  great  elementary 
sources  of  poetry  ;  to  the  world  of  nature  and  liuman  life. 
Wordsworth  searching  deeply  in  his  own  spirit,  the  laws 
of  passion,  and  lavishing  eloquence  to  delineate  nature 
with  almost  a  lover's  fondness;  Scott,  the  painter  of  all  ho 
sees,  and  of  all  that  his  imagination  has  seen,  who  has 
brought  back  departed  years,  and  clothed  them  in  the 
shape  and  colours  of  real  life  ;  Southey,  with  wild  and 
creative  power,  multiplying  before  our  sight  visions  from 
unreal  worlds,  but  making  for  them  a  dwelling-place  of 
the  beautiful  and  mighty  scenes  of  our  own,  and  ever 
touching  their  fanciful  natures  with  pure  and  gentle  feeling, 
springing  up  from  the  deep  fountains  of  human  loves; 
Campbell,  who  seemingly  .speaks  but  to  embody  ecstacy 
in  words,  touching,  and  but  touching,  the  forms  of  nature 
and  the  passions  of  men,  with  a  pencil  of  light ;  Moore, 
full  of  delight,  and  breathing  in  enchanting  words  and 
verse  his  own  delight,  through  all  ears  and  hearts;  Byron, 
who — but  suffice  it  for  the  present  to  say,  that  all  these, 
and  many  other  writers  of  genius,  though  of  less  fame, 


POETRY    OF    THE    PRESENT    DAY.  331 

tlipir  contemporaries  have  filled  their  poetry  with  the 
passionate  impressions  which  have  been  flung  from  the 
face  and  bosom  of  nature  upon  their  spirits,  or  have  risen 
up  to  them  in  strong  sympathy  with  the  affections  and 
passions  of  other  men,  or  yet  deeplier  from  their  own. 
Though  there  may  be  much  in  the  poetry  which  this 
age  has  produced,  which  will  be  condemned  as  false  to 
nature;  and  more,  far  more,  which  must  be  censured 
and  rejected,  as  violating  the  severe  and  high  canons  of 
art — yet  this  must  be  admitted,  we  think,  as  a  comprehen- 
sive description,  as  its  great  and  honourable  distinction, 
that  it  is  full  to  overflowing  of  the  love  of  the  works  of 
God. 

The  great  diflerence  between  the  poetry  of  Milton  and 
that  of  our  own  day,  is  the  severe  obedience  to  an  intel- 
lectual law  which  governed  his  mind  in  composition. 
The  study  of  his  poetry  would  be  as  much  a  work  of 
exact  intellectual  analysis,  as  that  of  the  logical  writings 
of  Aristotle.  It  is  evident  that  he  was  not  satisfied  with 
great  conception  ;  it  was  not  enough  that  language  yielded 
her  powerful  words  to  invest  those  conceptions  with  a 
living  form.  But  he  knew  that  when  he  wrote,  he  prac- 
tised an  intellectual  art : — that  both  the  workings  of 
imagination  and  the  vivid  impression  of  speech,  must 
be  reduced  into  an  order  satisfying  to  intelligence  ;  and 
hence,  in  his  boldest  poetry,  in  the  midst  of  wonder  and 
astonishment,  we  never  feel,  for  a  moment,  that  reason  is 
shaken  in  her  sovereignty  over  all  the  actions  of  the 
mind  :  we  are  made  to  feel,  on  the  contrary,  that  her 
prevailing,  over-ruling  power  rises  in  strength  and  ma- 
jesty, as  all  the  powers  that  are  subjected  to  her  kindle 
and  dilate. 

Such  a  character  in  composition,  testifies  not  only  to 
the  high  intellectual  power  of  the  mind  which  formed  the 
work,  but  it  shows  the  spirit  of  the  age.  We  are  assured 
by  that  evidence,  if  we  had  no  other,  that  the  age  which 
gave  Milton  birth,  had  cultivated,  to  the  highest,  the  intel- 
lectual faculties.  We  read,  in  his  poetry,  the  severe  and 
painful  studies,  the  toiling  energies  of  thought,  the  labours 
of  abstract  speculation,  and  long-concatenated  reasonings, 
which  tried  the  strength  of  the  human  faculties  in  the 


332  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

schools.  Imagination  has  clothed  that  strength  in  her 
own  forms;  but  the  strength  is  of  that  nurture.  The 
"giant  of  mighty  bone"  has  heroic  beauty;  but  the  struc- 
ture of  his  unconquerable  frame  is  of  Titan  origin. 

In  the  poetry  of  our  own  age,  we  miss  the  principle  of 
intellectual  strength.  The  two  most  ])opular  poets  of  the 
day,  Scott  and  Byron,  arc,  above  all  the  known  writers  of 
the  country,  remarkable  for  the  confusion  of  intellectual 
processes,  and  the  violation  of  intellectual  laws,  almost 
throughout  their  composition.  They  rest  upon  concep- 
tion. Imagination  and  passion  yield  them  abundant  crea- 
tion ;  language,  vivid  and  living,  clothes  the  brood  of 
their  minds  in  visible  form  ;  and  there  is  their  composition. 
Take  their  writings,  and  analyse  them  by  any  laws, 
known  or  possible,  of  human  speech,  and  you  would 
expel  thought  from  them  :  there  arc  passages  of  great 
splendour  and  fascination,  which  may  be  demonstrated  to 
be  unintelligible.  But  what  then  ?  The  sympathy  of  a 
reader  is  sometimes  stronger  than  the  laws  of  language. 
He  ivill  understand.  He  asks  satisfaction  to  his  own 
imagination  and  passion;  and  in  the  truths  of  imagination 
and  passion  he  finds  it. 

The  fault  is  one  which  does  not  prove  that  there  is  not, 
in  the  minds  of  both  these  illustrious  writers,  vast  intel- 
lectual capacity  and  vigour.  But  it  does  appear  to  argue, 
that  their  minds  have  not  undergone  due  intellectual  dis- 
cipline ;  and  might  justify  an  observer  in  suspecting,  that 
out  of  the  walk  of  their  own  genius,  they  would  not  be 
found  of  formidable  strength.  But  the  chief  deduction 
from  the  extraordinary  prevalence  of  such  a  defect  in 
writers  of  such  pre-eminent  reputation  and  favour,  is  intel- 
lectual weakness  in  the  age  to  which  they  belong.  That 
high  ancient  discipline  of  the  intellectual  |)0wers  must 
long  have  disappeared,  when  those  who  write  for  the 
sympathy  of  the  minds  of  highest  cultivation,  write  in 
fearless  scorn  of  intellectual  laws,  and  yet  win  the  wreath 
of  the  games. 

This  defect  has  not  impeded  their  living  reputation,  but 
it  may  possibly  obstruct  their  future.  We  apprehend  it 
can  hardly  do  otherwise  than  take  from  the  authority  of 
their  genius. 


POETRY    OF    THE    PRESENT    DAY.  333 

Now,  in  an  age  when  so  much  true  poetry — true  and 
high,  with  all  its  delects — blushes  and  breathes  over  the 
land — a  crop  of  indigenous  flowers — there  will  be  much 
that  is  false  and  low,  though  with  a  certain  show  and 
seeming  of  truth  and  splendour.  Poetry  is  scarcely  imi- 
tation of  Nature,  so  much  as  Nature's  self;  but  there 
will  be  imitation — skilful  or  unskilful — of  poetry  ; — and 
thus  the  art  of  mimicry  will  be  cultivated  by  hundreds 
who,  possess  talent,  but  no  genius.  So  is  it  with  us  of 
this  generation.  The  population  of  versifiers  doubles 
itself  every  ten  years.  They,  too,  belong  to  schools. 
Each  school — be  it  of  Scott,  or  Wordsworth,  or  Byron — 
is  like  a  room  hung  round  with  mirrors,  all  reflecting  an 
Eidolon  of  a  great  master.  The  images — mere  shadows 
— are  all  alike;  yet  each  pretends  to  think  itself  no 
image,  but  an  original  substance.  While  often,  to  hide 
from  the  world  and  themselves  the  utter  hollowness  of 
their  characters,  they  dress  up  the  Eidolon  in  uncouth 
and  fantastic  habiliments,  and  try  to  impose  the  nothing 
upon  our  eyes  as  a  something  self-existent.  But  the 
mockery  and  the  delusion  is  seen  through  ;  and  such 
apparitions  are  chased  off  the  day  into  chaos  and  old 
Night. 

People,  now-a-days,  will  write,  because  they  see  so 
many  writing ;  the  impulse  comes  upon  them  from  with- 
out, not  from  within  ;  loud  voices  from  streets  and  squares 
of  cities  call  on  them  to  join  the  throng,  but  the  still  small 
voice,  that  speaketh  in  the  penetralia  of  the  spirit,  is  mute; 
and  what  else  can  be  the  result,  but,  in  place  of  the  song 
of  lark,  or  linnet,  or  nightingale,  at  the  best  a  concert  of 
mocking-birds,  at  the  worst,  an  oratorio  of  ganders  and 
bubbleys  ? 

At  this  particular  juncture  or  crisis,  the  disease  would 
fain  assume  the  symptoms  of  religious  inspiration.  The 
poetasters  are  all  pious — all  smitten  with  sanctity — Chris- 
tian all  over — and  crossing  and  jostling  on  the  course  of 
time  — as  they  think,  on  the  high  road  to  heaven  and 
immortality.  Never  was  seen  before  such  a  shameless 
set  of  hypocrites.  Down  on  their  knees  they  fall  in 
booksellers'  shops,  and,  crowned  with  foolscap,  repeat  to 
Blue-Stockings,   prayers   addressed    in    doggerel    to   the 


334  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

Deity  !  They  bandy  about  the  Bible  as  if  it  were  an 
album.  They  forget  that  the  poorest  sinner  has  a  soul  to 
be  saved,  as  well  as  a  set  of  verses  to  be  damned  ;  they 
look  forward  to  the  first  of  the  month  with  more  fear  and 
trembling  than  to  the  last  day;  and  beseech  a  critic  to 
be  merciful  upon  them  with  far  more  earnestness  than 
they  ever  beseeched  their  Maker.  They  pray  through 
the  press — vainly  striving  to  give  some  publicity  to  what 
must  be  private  for  evermore;  and  are  seen  wiping  a>vay, 
at  tea-parties,  the  tears  of  contrition  and  repentance  for 
capital  crimes  perpetrated  but  on  paper,  and  perpetrated 
thereon  so  paltrily,  that  so  far  from  being  worthy  of  hell 
fire,  such  delinquents,  it  is  felt,  would  be  more  suitably 
punished  by  being  singed  like  plucked  fowls  with  their 
own  unsaleable  sheets.  They  are  frequently  so  singed  ; 
yet  singeing  has  not  the  effect  upon  them  for  which 
singeing  is  designed  ;  and  like  chickens  in  a  shower,  that 
have  got  the  pip,  they  keep  still  gasping  and  shooting 
out  their  tongues,  and  walking  on  tip-toe  with  their  tails 
down,  till  finally  they  go  to  roost  in  some  obscure  corner, 
and  are  no  more  seen  among  bipeds. 

Among  those,  however,  who  have  been  unfortunately 
beguiled  by  the  spirit  of  imitation  and  sympathy  into 
religious  poetry,  one  or  two — who,  for  the  present,  must 
be  nameless — have  shown  feeling ;  and  would  they  but 
obey  their  feeling,  and  prefer  walking  on  the  ground  with 
their  own  free  feet,  to  attempting  to  fly  in  the  air  with 
borrowed  and  bound  wings,  they  might  produce  something 
really  poetical,  and  acquire  a  creditable  reputation.  But 
they  are  too  aspiring;  and  have  taken  into  their  hands 
the  sacred  lyre  without  due  preparation.  He  who  is  so 
familiar  with  his  Bible,  that  each  chapter,  open  it  where 
he  will,  teems  with  household  words,  may  draw  thence 
the  theme  of  many  a  pleasant  and  pathetic  song.  For  is 
not  all  human  nature,  and  all  human  life,  shadowed  forth 
in  those  pages?  But  the  soul,  to  sing  well  from  the 
Bible,  must  be  imbued  with  religious  feelings,  as  a  flower 
is  alternately  with  dew  and  sunshine.  The  study  of  the 
HOOK  must  have  begun  in  the  simplicity  of  childhood, 
when  it  was  felt,  indeed,  to  be  divine — and  carried  on 
through  all  those   silent  intervals  in  which   the  soul  of 


POETRY    OP    THE    PRESENT    DAY.  335 

manhood  is  restored,  during  the  din  of  life,  to  the  purity 
and  peace  of  its  early  being.  The  Bible  must  be  to  such 
a  poet  even  as  the  skies — with  its  sun,  moon,  and  stars — 
its  boundless  blue,  with  all  its  cloud-mysteries — its  peace 
deeper  than  the  grave,  because  of  realms  beyond  the 
grave — its  tumult  louder  than  that  of  life,  because  heard 
all  together  in  all  the  elements.  He  who  begins  the  study 
of  the  Bible  late  in  life,  must,  indeed,  devote  himself  to  it 
— night  and  day — and  with  a  humble,  and  a  contrite 
heart,  as  well  as  an  awakened  and  soaring  spirit,  ere  he 
can  hope  to  feel  what  he  understands,  or  to  understand 
what  he  feels, — thoughts  and  feelings  breathing  in  upon 
him,  like  spiritual  scents  and  sounds,  as  if  from  a  region 
hanging,  in  its  mystery,  between  heaven  and  earth.  Nor 
do  we  think  that  he  will  venture  on  the  composition  of 
poetry  drawn  from  such  a  source.  The  very  thought  of 
doing  so,  were  it  to  occur  to  his  mind,  would  seem  irreve- 
rent ;  it  would  convince  him  that  he  was  still  the  slave  of 
vanity,  and  pride,  and  the  world. 

They  alone,  therefore,  to  whom  God  has  given  genius 
as  well  as  faith,  zeal  and  benevolence, — will,  of  their 
own  accord,  fix  their  Pindus  either  on  Lebanon  or  Cal- 
vary— and  of  these  but  few.  The  genius  must  be  high — 
the  faith  sure — and  human  love  must  coalesce  with  divine, 
that  the  strain  may  have  power  to  reach  the  spirits  of 
men,  immersed  as  they  are  in  matter,  and  with  all  their 
apprehensions  and  conceptions  blended  with  material 
imagery,  and  the  things  of  this  moving  earth  and  this 
restless  life. 

So  gifted  and  so  endowed,  a  great  or  good  poet,  having 
chosen  his  subject  well  within  religion,  is  on  the  sure  road 
to  immortal  fame.  Ilis  work,  when  done,  must  secure 
sympathy  for  ever  ;  a  sympathy  not  dependent  on  creeds, 
but  out  of  which  creeds  spring,  all  of  them  manifestly 
moulded  by  imaginative  affections  of  religion.  Christian 
poetry  will  outlive  every  other  ;  for  the  time  will  come 
when  Christian  poetry  will  be  deeper  and  higher  far  than 
any  that  has  ever  yet  been  known  among  men.  Indeed, 
the  sovereign  songs  hitherto  have  been  either  religious  or 
superstitious  ;  and  as  "  the  day-spring  from  on  high  that 
has  visited  us,"  spreads  wider  and  wider  over  the  earth, 


336  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

•'  the  soul  of  the  world,  dreaming  of  things  to  come," 
shall  assuredly  see  more  glorified  visions  than  have  yet 
been  submitted  to  her  ken.  That  poetry  has  so  seldom 
satisfied  the  utmost  longings  and  aspirations  of  human 
nature,  can  only  have  been  because  poetry  has  so  seldom 
dealt  in  its  power  with  the  only  mysteries  worth  knowing 
— the  greater  mysteries  of  religion,  into  which  the  soul  of 
a  Christian  is  initiated  only  through  faith,  an  angel  sent 
from  heaven  to  spirits  struggling  by  supplications  and 
sacrifices  to  escape  from  sin  and  death. 


THE  BIRTH-DAY.* 

(Blackwood's  Edinburgh  Magazine,  1837.) 

It  is  remarked  by  Mr.  Dyce,  in  the  preface  to  his  Spe- 
cimen of  British  Poetesses  (1827,)  that  of  the  selections 
which  have  been  made  from  the  chaos  of  our  past  poetry, 
the  majority  has  been  confined  ahiiost  entirely  to  the 
writings  of  men  ;  and  from  the  great  collections  of  the 
English  poets,  where  so  many  worthless  compositions  find 
a  place,  that  the  productions  of  women  have  been  care- 
fully excluded.  It  is  true,  he  admits,  that  the  grander 
inspirations  of  the  Muse  have  not  been  often  breathed  into 
the  softer  frame.  The  magic  tones  which  have  added  a 
new  existence  to  the  heart — the  tretnendous  thoughts 
which  have  in)pressed  a  successive  stamp  on  the  fluctua- 
tion of  ages,  and  which  have  almost  changed  the  character 
of  nations — these  have  not  proceeded  from  woman  ;  but 
her  sensibility,  her  tenderness,  her  grace,  have  not  been 
lost  nor  misemployed  :  her  genius  has  gradually  risen  with 
the  opportunities  which  facilitated  its  ascent.  To  exhibit 
the  growth  and  progress  of  the  genius  of  our  country- 
women in  the  department  of  poetry  was  the  object  of  his 
most  interesting  volume  ;  and  he  expresses  an  honest  satis- 
faction in  the  reflection  that  his  tedious  chase  through  the 
jungles  of  forgotten  literature — for  by  far  the  greater  num- 
ber of  female  effusions  lie  concealed  in  obscure  publica- 
tions— must  procure  to  his  undertaking  the  good-will  of 
the  sex.  For  though,  in  the  course  of  centuries,  new  an- 
thologies will  be  found,  more  interesting  and  more  exqui- 
site, because  the  human  mind,  and,  above  all,  the  female 
mind,  is  making  a  rapid  advance,  yet  his  work  will  never 
be  deprived  of  the  happy  distinction  of  being  one  of  the 

*  The  Birth-day,  a  Poem,  by  Caroline  Bowles,  now  Mrs.  Southey. 
VOL.  r.  29 


338  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

first  that  has  been  entirely  consecrated  to  women.  The 
specimens  begin  with  Juliana  Berners,  and  end  with 
Letitia  Landon. 

We  are  not  going  to  give  an  account  of  this  selection, 
but  having  taken  it  down  from  Shelf  Myra  in  a  mistake 
for  Caroline  Bowles's  "  Birth-day," — though  'tis  bigger  by 
half — we  have  passed  a  pleasant  hour  in  turning  over  the 
leaves,  skipping  some,  glancing  at  others,  perusing  a  kw, 
and  sing-songing  two  or  three  by  heart,  forgetful  how, 
where,  or  when  we  had  committed  them  to  memory,  yet 
feeling  they  were  old  friends,  and  worthy  of  being  wel- 
comed the  moment  we  saw  their  faces.  Probably,  till  we 
come  near  our  own  times,  there  is  but  little  of  what  one 
would  call  poetry  in  these  specimens.  The  British  poet- 
esses seem  a  series  of  exceedingly  sensible  maids  and 
matrons — not  "  with  eyes  in  a  fine  frenzy  rolling" — nor 
with  hair  dishevelled  by  the  tossings  of  inspiration,  but  of 
calm  countenances  and  sedate  demeanour,  not  very  distin- 
guishable from  those  we  love  to  look  on  by  "parlour  twi- 
light" in  any  happy  household  we  are  in  the  habit  of 
dropping  in  upon  of  an  evening  a  familiar  guest. 

Poetry,  or  not  poetry,  such  verses  are  to  us  ofien  very 
delightful ;  and  there  are  many  moods  of  mind  in  which 
good  people  prefer  Pomfret  to  Pindar. 

Why  should  we  always  be  desiring  fancy,  imagination, 
passion,  intellect,  power,  in  poetry,  as  if  these  were  essen- 
tial to  it,  and  none  were  poets  but  those  gifted  with  "  the 
vision  and  the  faculty  divine?"  Surely  the  pure  expres- 
sion of  pure  thoughts  and  feelings — the  staple  of  common 
life — if  imbued  with  a  certain  sweetness  of  soulfelt  sound 
beyond  that  of  ordinary  speech — coloured,  if  that  image 
please  you  better,  with  a  somewhat  greener  light  than  is 
usual  to  our  eyes — is  poetry.  Surely  they  who  are  moved 
so  to  commune  with  their  own  hearts,  or  with  the  hearts 
of  them  they  love — since  forms  and  hues  of  sentiment  are 
thus  produced  that  else  had  not  been — are  poets.  There 
is  genius  in  goodness  ;  and  gratitude  beautifies  the  bless- 
ings bestowed  by  heaven  on  the  pure  of  heart. 

There  is  Katherine  Philips — born  1631,  died  1664 — 
known  as  a  poetess  by  the  name  of  Orinda.  She  was  the 
daughter  of  John  Fowler,  a  London  merchant,  and  mar- 
ried James  Phili))?;  of  tlie  Priory,  Cnrdigan.     "  Her  devo- 


THE  lUUTIl-DAY.  'S'SQ 

tion  to  the  muses,"  says  Mr.  Dyco,  "  did  not  prevent  her 
from  discharging,  in  the  most  exemplary  manner,  the 
duties  of  domestic  Hfe."  Doubtless,  it  assisted  her  in 
doing  so ;  and  therefore,  though  she  was  praised  more 
than  once  by  Dryden,  and  was  renowned  by  Cowley,  a 
greater  glory  was  hers;  for  Jeremy  Taylor  addressed  to 
her  his  discourse  on  the  Nature,  Offices,  and  Measures  of 
Friendship.  Anne  Killegrew,  a  kindred  spirit,  immortalized 
by  Dryden  in  a  memorable  strain,  says  lovingly  of  her: — 

"  Orinda,  Albion's  and  her  sex's  grace, 
Owed  not  her  glory  to  a  beauteous  face  ; 
It  was  her  radiant  soul  tliat  shone  within, 
Which  struck  a  lustre  through  her  outward  skin; 
That  did  her  lips  and  cheeks  with  roses  dye, 
Advanced  her  height,  and  sparkled  in  her  eye ; 
Nor  did  her  sex  at  all  obstruct  her  fame. 
But  higher  'niong  the  stars  it  fix'd  her  name." 

That  she  was  very  beautiful  there  can  be  no  doubt ;  yet 
Orinda  was  celebrated  against  her  will — for  her  poems, 
which  had  been  dispersed  among  her  friends  in  manuscript, 
were  first  printed  without  her  knowledge  or  consent,  and 
the  publication  caused  her  a  fit  of  illness.  You  wish  to 
read  some  of  her  verses  1  As  you  love  us,  believe  them 
poetry. 

A  COUNTRY  LIFE. 

"  How  sacred  and  how  innocent 
A  country  life  appears, 
How  free  from  tumult,  discontent, 
From  flattery  or  fears ! 

"  This  was  the  first  and  happiest  life. 
When  man  enjoy'd  himself; 
Till  pride  exclianged  peace  for  strife. 
And  happiness  for  pelf. 

"  'Tvvas  here  the  poets  were  inspired. 
Here  taught  the  multitude; 
The  brave  they  here  with  honour  fired, 
And  civilized  the  rude. 

"  That  golden  age  did  entertain 
No  passion  but  of  love : 
The  thoughts  of  ruling  and  of  gain 
Did  ne'er  their  fancies  move. 


340  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

"  Then  welcome,  clearest  solitude, 
My  great  felicity ; 
Though  some  are  pleased  to  call  thee  rude, 
Thou  art  not  so,  but  we. 

"  Them  that  do  covet  only  rest, 

A  cottage  will  suffice: 

It  is  not  brave  to  be  possest 

Of  earth,  but  to  despise. 

"  Opinion  is  the  rate  of  things, 

From  hence  our  peace  doth  flow  ; 
I  have  a  better  fate  than  kings. 
Because  I  think  it  so. 

"  When  all  the  stormy  world  doth  roar, 
How  unconcern'd  am  I ! 
I  cannot  fear  to  tumble  lower 
Who  never  could  be  high, 

"  Secure  in  these  unenvy'd  walls 
I  think  not  on  the  state, 
And  pity  no  man's  case  that  falls 
From  his  ambition's  height. 

"  Silence  and  innocence  are  safe  ; 
A  heart  tliat's  nobly  true 
At  all  these  little  arts  can  laugh 
That  do  the  world  subdue. 

"  While  others  revel  it  in  state 
Here  I'll  contented  sit, 
And  think  I  have  as  good  a  fate 
As  wealth  and  pomp  admit. 

"  Let  others  (nobler)  seek  to  gain 
In  knowledge  happy  fate. 
And  others  busy  thetn  in  vain 
To  study  ways  of  state. 

"  But  I  resolved  from  within, 
Confirmed  from  without, 
In  privacy  intend  to  spin 
My  future  minutes  out. 

"  And  from  this  hormitarjc  of  mine, 
I  banish  all  wild  toys, 
And  nothing  that  is  not  divine 
Shall  dare  to  tempt  my  joys. 


THE  BIRTH-DAY.  341 

"  There  are  below  but  two  things  good, 
Friendship  and  honesty, 
And  only  those  of  all  I  would 
Ask  for  felicity. 

"  In  this  retired  and  humble  seat, 
Free  from  both  war  and  strife, 
I  am  not  forced  to  make  retreat, 
But  choose  to  spend  my  life." 

She  was  cut  off  by  the  small-pox — so  was  Anne  Killi- 
grew  (1655),  daughter  of  Sir  Henry  Killigrew,  Master  of 
the  Savoy,  and  one  of  the  prebendaries  of  Westminster. 
She  was  maid  of  honour  to  the  Duchess  of  York ;  and 
licr  portrait,  prefixed  to  her  poetical  compositions  pub- 
lished after  her  death,  a  mezzotint  from  a  picture  by  her- 
self, is  at  once  a  proof,  says  Mr.  Dyce,  of  her  skill  in 
painting.     These  lines  are  good. 

THE  COMPLAIJNT  OF  A  LOVER. 

"  See'st  thou  yonder  craggy  rock, 

Whose  head  o'erlooks  the  swelling  main, 
Where  never  shepherd  fed  his  flock, 
Or  careful  peasant  sow'd  his  grain  1 

"  No  wholesome  herb  grows  on  the  same. 
Or  bird  of  day  will  on  it  rest ; 
'Tis  barren  as  the  hopeless  flame, 
That  scorches  my  tormented  breast. 

"  Deep  underneath  a  cave  does  lie. 
The  entrance  hid  with  dismal  yew. 
Where  Phoebus  never  shovv'd  his  eye, 
Or  cheerful  day  yet  pierced  through. 

"  In  that  dark  melancholy  cell 
(Retreat  and  solace  of  my  wo,) 
Love,  sad  despair,  and  I,  do  dwell, 

The  springs  from  whence  my  grief  do  flow. 

"  Sleep,  which  to  others  ease  doth  prove, 
Comes  unto  me,  alas  in  vain; 
For  in  my  dreams  I  am  in  love. 
And  in  them  too  she  does  disdain." 
29* 


342  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

Mary  Monk,  daughter  of  Lord  Molesworth,  and  wife  of 
George  Monk,  Esq.,  (died  171.5,)  was  a  delightful  being, 
and  thou  wilt  read,  perhaps  not  with  unmoistened  eyes, 
my  Dora — these  words  of  the  dedication  to  the  Princess  of 
Wales,  of  her  poems,  written  after  her  deatlj  by  her  father. 
"  Most  of  them  are  the  product  of  the  leisure  hours  of  a 
young  gentlewoman  lately  deceased  ;  who,  in  a  remote 
country  retirement,  without  omitting  the  daily  care  due  to 
a  lai'ge  family,  not  only  perfectly  acquired  the  several 
languages  here  made  use  of  (Latin,  Italian,  Spanish,  and 
French,)  but  the  good  morals  and  principles  contained  in 
those  books,  so  as  to  put  them  in  practice,  as  well  during 
her  life  and  languishing  sickness,  as  at  the  hour  of  her 
death;  in  short,  she  died  not  only  like  a  Christian,  but 
like  a  Roman  lady,  and  so  became  at  once  the  object  of 
the  grief  and  comfort  of  her  relations."  Of  her  poetry  we 
have  here  two  specimens — one  a  very  noble  translation 
from  Felicaia  on  Providence — the  other,  "  Verses  written 
on  her  death-bed  at  Bath  to  her  husband  in  London." 
They  are  indeed  most  affecting. 

"  Thou  who  dost  all  my  worldly  thoughts  employ, 
Thou  pleasing  source  of  all  my  earthly  joy, 
Thou  tenderest  husband  and  thou  dearest  friend, 
To  thee  this  first  this  last  adieu  I  send  ! 
At  length  the  conqueror  Death  asserts  his  right, 
And  will  for  ever  veil  mc  from  thy  sight; 
He  wooes  me  to  him  with  a  cheerful  grace. 
And  not  one  terror  clouds  his  meagre  face; 
He  promises  a  lasting  rest  from  pam, 
And  !-hows  that  all  life's  fleeting  joys  arc  vain  ; 
Th'  eternal  scenes  of  heaven  he  sets  in  view, 
And  tells  me  that  no  other  joys  are  true. 
But  love,  fond  love,  would  yet  resi.^t  his  power, 
Would  fain  awhile  defer  the  parting  liour  ; 
He  brin^^s  thy  mourning  image  to  my  eyes, 
And  would  obstruct  my  journey  to  the  skies. 
But  say,  lliou  dearest,  thou  unwearied  friend  ! 
Say,  should'st  thou  grieve  to  see  my  sorrows  end  1 
Tliou  know'st  a  painful  pilgrimage  I've  past ; 
And  should'st  thou  grieve  that  rest  is  come  at  last  1 
Rather  rejoice  to  see  me  shake  off  life, 
And  die  as  I  have  lived,  thy  tiiithful  wife." 


THE  BIRTH-DAY.  343 

Have  not  these  "  breathings,"  sincere  and  fervent,  from 
breasts  most  pure,  proved  to  your  heart's  content,  that  we 
were  right  in  what  we  said  above  of  poetry  ?  These  three 
were  Christian  ladies — in  high  life,  but  humble  in  spirit — 
all  accomplished  in  this  world's  adornments,  but  intent  on 
heaven.  There  is  an  odour,  as  of  violets,  while  we  press 
the  pages  to  our  lips. 

VVe  never  had  in  our  hands  the  poems  of  Anne,  Countess 
of  Winchelsea,  printed  in  1713;  but  we  well  remember 
reading  some  of  them  in  beautiful  manuscript,  many  years 
ago,  at  Rydal  Mount.  Wordsworth  has  immortalized  her 
in  the  following  sentence: — "It  is  remarkable  that,  ex- 
cepting a  passage  or  two  in  the  Windsor  Forest  of  Pope, 
and  some  delightful  pictures  in  the  poems  of  Lady  Win- 
chelsea, the  poetry  of  the  period  intervening  between  the 
publication  of  the  Paradise  Lost  and  the  Seasons,  does  not 
contain  a  single  new  image  of  external  nature."  She  was 
the  daughter  of  Sir  William  Kingsmill  of  Sidmonton,  in 
the  county  of  Southampton,  maid  of  honour  to  the  Duchess 
of  York,  second  wife  of  James  IL,  and  married  Heneage, 
second  son  of  Heneage,  Earl  of  Winchelsea,  to  which  title 
he  succeeded  on  the  death  of  his  nephew.  Mr.  Dyce  has 
given  three  of  her  compositions,  all  excellent — the  Atheist 
and  the  Acorn — Life's  Progress — and  a  Nocturnal  Re- 
verie. In  the  last  are  some  "  of  the  delightful  pictures" 
alluded  to  by  Wordsworth  : 

"  In  such  a  night,  when  every  louder  wind 
Is  to  its  distant  cavern  safe  confined  ; 
And  only  gentle  Ze|)liyr  fans  his  wings, 
And  lonely  Philomel,  still  waking,  sings; 
Or  from  some  tree,  famed  lor  the  owl's  delight, 
Siie,  hollowing  clear,  directs  the  wanderer  right: 
In  such  a  night,  when  passing  clouds  give  place. 
Or  thinly  veil  the  heaven's  mysterious  face; 
When  in  some  river,  overhung  with  green. 
The  waving  moon,  and  trembling  leaves  are  seen  ; 
When  freshen'd  grass  now  bears  itself  upright. 
And  makes  cool  banks  to  pleasing  rest  invite. 
Whence  spring  the  woodbine,  and  the  bramble-rose. 
And  where  the  sleepy  cowslip  sbelter'd  grows ; 
Whilst  now  a  paler  hue  the  foxglove  takes. 
Yet  chequers  still  with  red  the  dusky  brakes ; 


3-14  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

When  scatter'd  glow-worms,  but  in  twilight  fine, 
Show  trivial  beauties,  watch  their  hour  to  shine; 
Whilst  Salisb'ry  stands  the  test  of  every  light, 
In  perfect  charms,  and  perfect  virtue  bright : 
When  odours  which  declined  repelling  day, 
Through  temperate  air  uninterrupted  stray; 
When  darken'd  groves  their  softest  shadows  wear, 
And  falling  waters  we  distinctly  hear; 
When  tlirough  the  gloom  more  venerable  shows 
Some  ancient  fabric,  awful  in  repose ; 
W'hile  sunburnt  hills  their  swarthy  looks  conceal. 
And  swelling  hay-cocks  thicken  up  the  vale; 
When  the  loosed  horse  now,  as  his  pasture  leads. 
Comes  slowly  grazing  through  th'  adjoining  meads, 
Whose  stealing  pace,  and  lengthen'd  shade  we  fear, 
Till  torn-up  forage  in  his  teeth  we  hear; 
'When  nibbling  sheep  at  large  pursue  their  food. 
And  unmolested  kine  rechew  the  cud  ; 
When  curlews  cry  beneath  the  village  walls, 
And  to  her  straggling  brood  the  partridge  calls; 
Their  short-lived  jubilee  the  creatures  keep. 
Which  but  endures  while  tyrant  man  does  sleep; 
When  a  sedate  content  the  spirit  feels, 
And  no  fierce  light  disturbs,  whilst  it  reveals; 
But  silent  musings  urge  the  mind  to  seek 
Something  too  high  for  syllables  to  speak; 
Till  the  free  soul  to  a  composedness  charm'd. 
Finding  the  elements  of  rage  disarm'd. 
O'er  all  below  a  solemn  quiet  grown, 
Joys  in  th'  inferior  world,  and  thinks  it  like  her  own: 
In  such  a  night  let  me  abroad  remain. 
Till  morning  breaks,  and  all's  confused  again; 
Our  cares,  our  toils,  our  clamours  are  renew'd, 
Of  pleasures,  seldom  reach'd,  again  pursued." 

We  find  nothing  comparable  to  what  we  have  now 
quoted  in  any  of  the  eflusions  of  the  thirt)''  poetesses — let 
us  in  courtesy  so  call  them — who  flourished  from  the 
death  of  Lady  Winchelsca  to  that  of  Charlotte  Smith. 
True,  that  Lady  Mary  VVortley  Montague  is  among  the 
number,  but  her  brilliant  genius  was  not  poetical,  and 
shines  in  another  sphere.  Elizabeth  Rowc,  when  Betsy 
Singer,  was  warmly  admired  by  Prior,  among  whose 
poems  is  an  "  answer  to  Mrs.  Singer's  pastoral  on  Love 
and  Friendship."     But  though  she  says,  finely  we  think, 


THE  BIRTII-DAY.  345 

"There  in  a  melting,  solemn,  dying  strain, 
Let  mo  all  day  upon  my  lyre  complain, 
And  wind  op  all  its  soft  harmonious  strings 
To  noble,  serious,  melancholy  things;" 

her  verse  is  far  inferior  to  her  prose,  though  that  be 
vicious, — yet  there  are  strains  of  true  feeling  in  her 
Letters  from  the  Dead  to  the  Living.  Mrs.  Greville's 
celebrated  Ode  to  Indifference  does  not  disturb  that  mood, 
and  Frances  Sheridan's  Ode  to  Patience  tries  that  virtue. 
Yet  they  were  both  accomplished  women,  and  both  odes 
were  thought  admirable  in  their  day.  Henrietta,  Lady 
O'Neil  (born  1755 — died  1793),  had  something  of  the 
true  inspiration.  Her  Ode  to  the  Poppy — too  long  to  be 
extjacted — is  elegant  and  eloquent,  and  speaks  the  lan- 
guage of  passion ;  and  surely  the  following  lines  are 
natural  and  pathetic. 

"  Sweet  age  of  blest  delusion  !  blooming  boys, 
Ah  !  revel  long  in  childhood's  thoughtless  joys. 
With  light  and  pliant  spirits,  that  can  stoop 
To  follow  sportively  the  rolling  hoop; 
To  watch  the  sleeping  top  with  gay  delight, 
Or  mark  with  raptured  gaze  the  sailing  kite ; 
Or  eagerly  pursuing  Pleasure's  call, 
Can  find  it  center'd  in  the  bounding  ball ! 
Alas !  the  day  loill  come,  when  sports  like  these 
Must  lose  their  magic,  and  their  power  to  please; 
Too  swiftly  fled,  the  rosy  hours  of  youth 
Shall  yield  their  fairy-charms  to  mournful  truth; 
Even  now,  a  mother's  fond  prophetic  fear 
Sees  the  dark  train  of  human  ills  appear; 
Views  various  fortune  for  each  lovely  child, 
Storms  for  the  bold,  and  anguish  for  the  mild  ; 
Beholds  already  those  expressive  eyes 
Beam  a  sad  certainty  of  future  sighs  ; 
And  dreads  each  suffering  those  dear  breasts  may  know 
In  their  long  passage  through  a  world  of  wo ; 
Perchance  predestined  every  pang  to  prove. 
That  treacherous  friends  inflict,  or  fliithless  love  ; 
For  ah  !  how  few  have  found  existence  sweet, 
\Vhere  grief  is  sure,  but  happiness  deceit!" 

Mary  Barber  was  the  wife  of  a  shopkeeper  in  Dublin,  and 
Mary  Leapor  a  cook,  but  neither  of  them  had  so  much  of 


346  wilsom's  miscellaneous  writings. 

the  onens  divinior  as  might  have  been  expected  from 
their  occupation.  Molly  maives  PhiUis,  a  country  maid, 
reject  the  addresses  of  Sylvanus,  a  courtier,  in  favour  of 
Corydon,  on  the  ground  of  good  eating.  The  lines  are 
savoury. 

"  Not  this  will  lure  me,  for  I'd  have  you  know, 
This  night  to  feast  with  Corydon  I  go; 
Then  beef  and  coleworts,  beans  and  bacon  too, 
And  the  plum-pudding  of  delicious  hue, 
Sweet-spiced  cakes,  and  apple-pies  good  store, 
Deck  the  brown  board — and  who  can  wish  for  morel" 

The  verse  of  Ann  Yearsley,  the  milk-woman,  we  never 
tasto^,  but  suspect  it  was  thin  and  sour;  and  we  cannot 
excuse  her  for  behaving  so  shamefully  to  Hannah  More. 
Esther  Chapone,  as  the  world  once  knew,  wrote  Letters 
on  the  Improvement  of  the  Mind,  and  Elizabeth  Carter 
a  translation  of  Epictetus,  and  they  were  ladies  of  the 
greatest  learning  and  respectability  ;  but  the  one's  Ode  to 
Solitude,  and  the  other's  Ode  to  Wisdom  are  really  too 
much.  Besides,  they  are  as  like  as  two  peas.  Georgiana, 
Duchess  of  Devonshire,  the  most  beautiful  of  the  beautiful, 
and  richly  endowed  by  nature  with  mental  gifts,  wrote 
lines — the  Passage  of  the  Mountain  of  St.  Gothard — 
admired — at  least  so  he  said  in  verse — by  Coleridge. 
And  poor  Mary  Robinson,  with  all  her  frailties,  did  not 
deserve  to  be  strapped  in  her  infirmity  by  that  cruel 
cobbler.  "  Her  poems,"  says  Mr.  Dyce,  "  show  that  she 
possessed  a  good  deal  of  fancy" — which  is  more  than 
Gifford  did — and  "  a  very  pleasing  facility  of  composi- 
tion." But  no  Englishwoman  ever  wrote  verses  worthy 
of  being  twice  read,  who  had  deviated  from  virtue. 

Contemporaries  of  Charlotte  Smith  were  Anna  Sevvard, 
who  possessed  fine  talents,  and  had  she  not  been  spoiled, 
would  assuredly  have  excelled  most  of  her  sex  in  descrip- 
tion of  nature  and  of  passion ;  Anne  Hunter,  all  whose 
verses  are  written  with  elegance  and  feeling,  and  whose 
"  Death  Song"  is  a  noble  strain,  almost  worthy  of  Camp- 
bell himself;  Anne  Barbauld,  an  honoured  name,  but  in 
poetry  only  an  imitator  of  exquisite  skill ;  Amelia  Opie, 
whose  "  Father  and   Daughter"  will  endure  "  till  pity's 


THE  DIRTH-DAY.  347 

self  be  dead,"  and  of  her  songs  and  elegiac  strains,  sonne 
will  outlive  many  connpositions  of  the  sanae  kind  now 
flourishing  in  fashionable  life,  whille  hers  would  seem  to 
be  forgotten;  and  our  own  Anne  Grant,  whose  "High- 
landers," though  occasionally  somewhat  heavy,  contains 
many  pictures  entirely  true  to  nature,  and  breathes  of  the 
heather.  But  her  reputation  rests  on  the  wide  and  firm 
foundation  of  her  prose,  and  she  will  for  ever  occupy  a 
foremost  place  among  our  Scottish  worthies. 

But  Britain  had  as  yet  produced  no  great  poetess,  and 
she  has  produced  but  one — Joanna  Baillie.  Her  Plays  on 
the  Passions  were  hailed  at  once  all  over  the  land  as  works 
of  genius  of  the  highest  kind,  while  yet  the  poetry  of 
Cowper,  and  Crabbe,  and  Burns,  had  lost  none  of  its  fresh- 
ness— they  were  secure  in  their  "  ])ride  of  place"  during 
the  successive  reigns  of  Scott  and  Byron — and  now  that 
her  magnificent  plan  has  been  completed,  the  whole  may 
be  regarded  with  undiminished  admiration  even  by  those 
who  can  comprehend  the  grandeur  of  Wordsworth.  It  is 
somewhat  strange  that  Scotland  should  have  given  birth 
but.  to  a  single  poetess;  nothing  strange  that  of  her  should 
have  been  born  the  greatest  of  all  y)oetesses,  so  we  grudge 
not  to  England  the  glory  of  all  the  rest.  Those  of  this 
age,  alive  or  dead,  transcend  in  worth  those  of  all  her 
other  ages.  Nay,  each  of  the  planetary  five  is  more 
lustrous  than  any  of  their  constellations. 

We  plan  and  promise,  but  do  not  perform.  The  series 
on  those  luminaries  is  in  our  brain,  but  will  not  leave  their 
pia  mater.  We  know  not  well  why  it  is  so,  but  we  often 
think  together  of  Charlotte  Smith,  i\iary  Howitt,  and  Caro- 
line Bowles.  We  are  resolved  to  speak  now  of  Caroline 
Bowles ;  nor  shall  the  Monarch  be  suffered  to  leave  the 
Roads  without  this  sheet  on  board. 

And  now  we  have  been  brought  "smooth-sliding  with- 
out step,"  or,  as  is  our  wont,  on  the  wilfulness  of  wings' 
(how  unlike  to  walking  or  rather  wading  one's  way  through 
an  article  like  an  ordinary  human  being  with  splay-feet 
and  flat-fish  soles !)  to  the  poem  more  immediately  before 
us,  from  which  we  are  not  without  hopes  of  being  able 
ere  long  to  bring  ourselves  to  extract  not  a  few  pregnant 
passages  for  your  delectation.     Our  hearts — at  no  time 


348  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

cold — warmed  towards  our  critical  brethren,  as  we  heard 
them  ail — all  of  any  mark  or  likelihood — dailies,  weeklies, 
and  monthlies — (the  quarterlies  are  such  laggards  in  love, 
that  they  generally  arrive  a  year  after  the  fair)  enthusiastic 
in  their  praise  of  this  delightful  volume.  People  with  a 
crick  in  their  neck,  a  flea  in  their  ear,  may  abuse  the 
brotherhood  ;  but  we  are  deservedly  popular  among  the 
tolerably  happy ;  and  no  other  class  of  men,  we  have  been 
credibly  informed,  received  so  many  unlooked-for  legacies 
as  the  editors  of  periodical  works.  In  politics  it  is  impos- 
sible to  be  too  truculent.  He  who  gives  quarter  is  a  fool, 
and  is  cut  down  by  his  prisoner.  No  war  worth  looking 
at,  much  less  mingling  in,  but  that  in  which  we  tight  under 
the  bloody  flag.  May  the  first  radical  we  meet  on  the 
field  run  us  through  the  body,  if  we  do  not  anticipate  him; 
till  then,  we  give  him  hearty  greeting  at  the  social  board, 
and  make  no  allusion  to  politics,  except  it  be  to  laugh 
along  with  him  at  Lord  Melbourne.  But  in  literature  we 
feel  "  that  the  blue  sky  bends  over  all;"  and  that  all  the 
nations  of  the  earth  are  or  ought  to  be  at  peace.  All  of 
us,  after  a  hard-fought  day  in  political  warfare,  that  is,  all 
of  us  who  are  left  alive,  are  glad  to  lay  down  our  weapons, 
and  join  in  celebration  of  the  triumph  of  some  bold  son  or 
bright  daughter  of  song. — How  elevating  a  sight  to  see  us 
all  crowding  round  the  object  of  our  common  admiration, 
and  emulously  binding  the  brows  of  genius  with  victorious 
wreaths !  And  oh !  what  if  they  be  woman's  brows ! 
Then  with  our  admiration  mingles  love  ;  and  we  know  of  a 
surety  that  while  we  are  honouring  genius,  we  are  re- 
warding virtue. 

"  The  Birth-Day"  is  the  autobiography  of  the  childhood 
of  genius  by  Caroline  Bowles.  And  by  what  is  the  child- 
hood of  genius  distinguished  from  the  childhood  of  you  or 
me,  or  any  other  good  old  man  or  woman '/  Read  the 
Birth-Day,  and  perhaps  you  may  know.  Yet  we  believe 
that  there  is  genius  in  all  childhood.  But  the  creative  joy 
that  makes  it  great  in  its  simplicity  dies  a  natural  death  or 
is  killed,  and  there  is  an  end  of  genius.  In  favoured  spirits, 
neither  few  nor  many,  the  joy  and  the  might  survive; 
they  arc  the  poets  and  the  poetesses  of  whom  Alexander 
Dyce  and  Christopher  North  delight  to  show  s])ecimens — 


THE  BIRTH-DAY.  349 

nor  among  them  all  is  there  a  fairer  spirit  than  Caroline 
Bowles.  What  a  memory  she  has!  for  you  must  know 
that  unless  it  be  accompanied  with  imagination,  memory  is 
cold  and  lifeless.  The  forms  it  brings  before  us  must  be 
connected  with  beauty,  that  is,  with  affection  or  passion. 
All  minds,  even  the  dullest,  remember  the  days  of  their 
youth ;  but  all  cannot  bring  back  the  indescribable  bright- 
ness of  that  blessed  season.  They  who  would  know  what 
they  once  were,  must  not  merely  recollect,  but  they  must 
imagine,  the  hills  and  valleys — if  any  such  there  were — in 
which  their  childhood  played,  the  torrents,  the  waterfalls, 
the  lakes,  the  heather,  the  rocks,  the  heaven's  imperial 
dome,  the  raven  floating  only  a  little  lower  than  the  eagle 
in  the  sky.  To  imagine  what  he  then  heard  and  saw,  he 
must  imagine  his  own  nature.  He  must  collect  from  many 
vanished  hours  the  power  of  his  untamed  heart,  and  he 
must,  perhaps,  transfuse  also  something  of  his  maturer 
mind  into  these  dreams  of  his  former  being,  thus  linking 
the  past  with  the  present  in  a  continuous  chain,  which, 
though  often  invisible,  is  never  broken.  So  is  it  too  with 
the  calmer  affections  that  have  grown  within  the  shelter  of 
a  roof.  We  do  not  merely  remember,  we  imagine  our 
father's  house,  the  fireside,  all  his  features  then  most 
living,  now  dead  and  buried ;  the  very  manner  of  his 
smile,  every  tone  of  his  voice.  We  must  combine  with 
all  the  passionate  and  plastic  power  of  imagination  the 
spirit  of  a  thousand  happy  hours  into  one  moment ;  and 
we  must  invest  with  all  that  we  ever  felt  to  be  venerable 
such  an  image  as  alone  can  satisfy  our  filial  hearts.  It  is 
thus  that  imagination,  which  first  aided  the  growth  of  all 
our  holiest  and  happiest  affections,  can  preserve  them  to 
us  unimpaired — 

"  For  she  can  give  us  back  the  dead, 
Even  in  the  loveliest  looks  they  wore." 

We  hope  we  have  said  sufficient  to  show  that  the  sub- 
ject of  the  Birth-Day  is  full  of  poetry  ;  and  depend  upon  it, 
should  you  be  disposed  to  deny  it,  that,  in  spite  of  the 
muscularity  of  your  bodily  frame,  which  may  be  of  an 
unusual  strength,  you  are  in  your  second  childhood,  which 

VOL.  r.  30 


350  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

is  all  unlike  your  first,  on  the  authority  of  Shakspeare. 
Remember  that  Wordsworth  has  wisely  said  "  the  child  is 
father  of  the  man;"  and  be  assured  that  if  "  your  heart 
leaps  not  up"  when  you  "  behold  a  rainbow  in  the  sky," 
you  must  be  a  monster  of  filial  ingratitude.  Be  born  again 
then ;  and  though  we  do  not  insist  on  your  changing  your 
sex,  be  a  boy  worthy  of  dancing  in  a  fairy  ring  hand-in- 
hand  with  pretty  Caroline  Bowles, 

"  Whose  hair  is  thick  with  many  a  curl, 
That  clusters  round  her  head." 

For  a  iew  years  during  "  the  innocent  brightness  of  the 
new-born  day,"  boys  and  girls,  God  bless  them  !  are  one 
and  the  same  creatures — by  degrees  they  grow,  almost 
unsuspectingly,  each  into  a  different  kind  of  living  soul. 
Mr.  Elton,  in  his  beautiful  poem  of  Boyhood,  has  shown 
us  Harry,  and  here  Miss  Bowles  has  shown  us  Carry,  and 
now  you  may  know,  if  you  will,  how  in  the  education  of 
nature 

"  Uprose  both  living  flowers  beneath  your  eyes." 

'Tis  a  cheerful  poem  the  Birth-Day,  and  the  heart  of  its 
producer  ofien  sings  aloud  for  joy — yet  'tis  a  mournful 
poem  too,  and  we  can  believe  ihat  her  fair  manuscript 
was  now  and  then  spotted  with  a  tear.  For  have  you  not 
felt,  when  looking  back  on  life,  how  its  scenes  and  inci- 
dents, different  as  they  may  seem  at  the  first  glance  of  re- 
cognition, begin  gradually  to  melt  into  each  other,  till  they 
are  indistinguishably  blended  in  one  pensive  dream  1  In 
our  happiest  hours  there  may  have  been  something  in 
common  with  our  most  sorrowful — some  shade  of  sadness 
cast  over  them  by  a  ])assing  cloud,  that,  on  retros[)ect, 
allies  them  with  the  sombre  spirit  of  grief.  And  in  like 
manner,  in  our  unhappiest  hours,  there  may  have  been 
gleams  of  gladness  that  in  memory  seem  almost  to  give 
them  the  character  of  peace.  They  all  seem  to  resemble 
one  another  now  that  they  are  all  past — the  pleasures  of 
memory  are  formed  of  the  pains  of  reality — feelings  indif- 
ferent, or  even  distressing,  receive  a  sort  of  sanctification 
in  the  stillness  of  the  time  that  is  gone  by,  and  all  thoughts 


THE  BIRTH-DAY.  351 

and  passions  become  then  equalized,  just  like  the  humnn 
beings  whom  they  adorned  or  degraded,  when  they  too  are 
at  last  gathered  together  in  the  bosom  of  the  same  earth. 

But  why  will  we  moralize  like  a  melancholy  Jacques, 
when  we  had  half  promised  to  be  merry?  You  must  ask 
Caroline  Bowles.  For  she  has  infected  us  with  her  vein 
of  sadness,  beginning  her  poem  with  this  line — 

"  Dark  gloomy  day  of  winter's  darkest  month ;" 

And  hugging  the  cold  gloom  to  her  heart, 

"For  memory  with  a  serious  reckoning  now 
Is  busy  with  the  past — with  other  years, 
When  the  return  of  this,  our  natal  day, 
Brought  gladness  to  warm  hearts  that  loved  me  well." 

And  as  a  wayworn  traveller  lingers  on  the  height  pen- 
sively to  survey  the  "  pleasant  plain  o'erpast,"  and  feels  ere 
he  descend  as  if  that  ridge  *'  divided  summer  from  winter," 

"  So  linger  I, 
Life's  lonely  pilgrim,  on  the  last  hill  top, 
With  thoughtful,  tender,  retrospective  gaze. 
Ere  turning  down  the  deep  descent  I  go 
Of  the  cold  shadowy  side." 

That  is  poetry  ;  for  the  image,  though  old  as  the  hills,  and 
the  human  heart,  and  the  heavens,  is  felt  as  if  it  were  new, 
and  there  is  in  it  an  unexpected  touch  of  beauty  that  en- 
dears the  poetess  to  our  affections.  Such  a  spirit  need 
not  long  be  sad  ;  and  with  a  cheerful  voice  she  exclaims, 

"  Come  in  your  mellow'd  hues,  long  vanish'd  years ! 
Come  in  your  soften'd  outline,  passing  slow 
O'er  the  charm'd  mirror." 

She  looks  and  sees  her  parents — 

"  And  one  the  good,  the  gentle,  the  beloved  ! 
My  mother's  mother." 

Sydney  Smith  truly  tells  us,  in  his  pathetic  and  late 
lament  for  the  doomed  old  cathedral  services  and  ministra- 
tions, that  this  is  an  age  oi persiflage. 

"  None  so  mean  as  do  them  reverence" 


352  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

to  sanctities  long  regarded  with  awe  at  once  sweet  and 
solemn  ;  and  in  proof  thereof,  we  may  cite,  "  familiar  as 
household  words,"  the  interrogatory  often  put  to  one  on 
the  streets  by  strange  men,  "  How's  your  mother?"  The 
notion  of  any  human  being  caring  seriously  for  his 
mother  is  held  to  be  the  utmost  extravagance  the  mind  of 
man  is  capable  of  conceiving  ;  and  in  that  question  is 
implied  an  accusation  of  folly,  the  absurd  guilt  of  which, 
if  seemingly  confessed  by  a  stare,  rends  their  convulsed 
sides  with  unextinguishable  laughter.  "  How's  your  grand- 
mother?" is  a  flight  ohose  persiflage.  How's  your  great- 
grandmother  is  a  query  not  yet  put  by  man  to  his  kind. 

Notwithstanding  all  this,  we  sympathize  with  the  poetess 
as  she  says, 

"Even  now  methinks  that  placid  smile  I  see, 
That  kindly  beamed  on  all,  but  chief  on  me. 
Her  age's  darling !  not  of  hers  alone  ; 
One  yet  surviving  in  a  green  old  age, 
Her  mother  lived ;  and  when  I  saw  the  light, 
Rejoicing  hail'd  her  daughter's  daughter's  child." 

But  what  shall  we  say  of  a  poetess  who,  in  this  age  of 
•persiflage^  in  blank  verse  celebrates — her  nurse  ?  That 
it  is  childish.  Then  what  an  old  fool  was  Homer!  and 
what  a  simpleton  Ulysses !  That  old  dog,  and  that  old 
nurse  alone  recognised  the  king.  'Tis  the  most  affecting 
drivel  in  all  the  Odyssey.  Then  let  Caroline  Bowles  put 
her  dog  and  her  nurse  into  a  poem,  and  laugh  till  your 
eyes  water.  The  nurse  is  alive  at  this  day  ;  and  though 
it  may  be  a  peevish  old  body,  doited  and  dozey,  and  better 
in  the  Poor's  House,  yet  there  is  something  in  these  lines  : 

"  Nor  from  that  kindred,  patriarchal  group 
Be  thou  excluded,  long  tried,  humble  friend  ! 
Old  faithful  servant!    Sole  survivor  now 
Of  those  beloved,  fijr  whom  thine  aged  hands 
'i'he  last  sad  service  tremblingly  perform'd 
That  closed  their  eyes,  and  for  tlie  long,  long  sleep 
Array'd  them  in  the  vestments  of  the  grave. 
Yes — THOU  survivest  still  to  tend  and  watch 
Me,  the  sad  orplian  of  thy  master's  house ! 
JMy  cradle  hast  thou  rock'd  with  patient  love 
(Love  all-enduring,  all-indulgent)  borne 


THE  BIRTH-DAV.  353 

My  cliildhood's  wayward  fancies,  that  from  thee 
Never  rebuke  or  frown  encounter'd  cold. 

Come  nearer. — Let  me  rest  my  cheek  even  now 
On  thy  dear  shoulder,  printed  witli  a  mark 
Indelible,  of  suffering  borne  for  me  : 
Fruit  of  contagious  contact  long  endured, 
When  on  the  pillow  lay  my  infant  head 
For  days  and  nights,  a  helpless  dying  weight, 
So  thought  by  all ;  as  almost  all  but  thee 
Shrank  from  the  little  victim  of  a  scourge 
Yet  uncontroird  by  Jenner's  heaven-taught  hand. 
And  with  my  growth  has  grown  the  debt  of  love; 
For  many  a  day  beside  my  restless  bed, 
In  later  years,  thy  station  hast  thou  kept, 
Watching  my  slumbers;  or  with  fondest  wiles 
Soothing  the  fretful,  fev'rish  hour  of  pain  : 
And  when  at  last,  with  languid  frame  I  rose, 
Feeble  as  infancy,  what  hand  like  tiiine, 
With  such  a  skilful  gentleness,  perform'd 
The  handmaid's  office  ! — tenderly,  as  when 
A  helpless  babe,  thou  oft  had'st  robed  me  thus. 
Oh  !  the  vast  debt. — Yet  to  my  grateful  heart 
Not  burdensome,  not  irksome  to  repay  : 
For  small  requital  dost  thou  claim,  dear  nurse  ! 
.  Only  to  know  thy  fondly  lavish'd  cares 
Have  sometimes  power  to  cheer  and  comfort  me : 
Then  in  thy  face  reflected,  beams  the  light. 
The  unwonted  gladness,  that  irradiates  mine. 
Long  may'st  thou  sit  as  now,  invited  oft, 
Beside  my  winter  fire,  with  busy  hands 
And  polished  needles,  knitting  the  warm  wool ; 
Or  resting  with  meek  reverence  from  thy  work, 
When  from  tlutt  Book,  that  blessed  Book  !  I  read 
The  words  of  truth  and  life, — thy  hope  and  mine." 

Of  things  that  were  long  before  her  "  Birth-Day"  the 
poetess,  though  she  has  heard  them  with  much  variety  of 
phrase,  many  a  time  and  off,  never  wearies  hearing  from 
"  Time's  faithful  chronicler."  And  we  love  to  gather  from 
hints  of  the  dear  old  body's  prolixities — though  we  happen- 
ed to  know  it  before — that  Caroline  Bowles  is  of  an  "old 
family" — to  hear  tell  of 

"  That  ancient  manor  of  my  Norman  race 
In  all  its  feudal  greatness;" 
30* 


354  Wilson's  miscellaneous  avritings. 

though  now  alas  !  (and  yet  no  great  pity),  the  ancient  gate- 
way is  an  isolated  arch — 

"The  noble  trees, 
A  triple  avenue,  its  proud  approach, 
Gone  as  they  ne'er  had  been ;  the  dove-cote  tower 
A  desecrated  niin ;  the  old  house — 
Dear  nurse!  full  fain  am  I  to  weep  with  thee 
The  flided  glories  of  the  '  good  old  time.'  " 

And  did  we  say  "  no  great  pity  1"  We  did  ;  nor  will  the 
sweet  singer  be  angry  with  us ;  for  there  are  other 
changes  in  the  course  of  nature  that,  to  think  of  even  for 
a  moment,  aflect  with  a  profounder  sadness  than  even  the 
dilapidations  of  holiest  places  or  most  endeared ;  and  to 
them  we  turn  at  her  bidding — and  to  her  first  dim  appre- 
hension— in  the  disappearance  of  the  beloved — of  death. 

"  The  kindred  band  is  broken.     One  goes  hence, 
The  very  aged.     Follows  soon,  too  soon, 
Another  mo:it  endear'd,  the  next  in  age. 
Then  fell  from  cliildhood's  eyes  its  earliest  tears. 

Unconscious  half, 
Incomprehensive  of  the  awful  truth  ; 
But  flowing  faster  when  I  look'd  around 
And  saw  that  others  wept ;  and  faster  still, 
Wlien  clinging  round  my  nurse's  neck,  with  face 
Half  buried  there,  to  hide  tlie  bursting  grief, 
I  heard  her  tell  how  in  the  churchyard  cold, 
In  the  dark  pit,  the  form  I  loved  was  laid. 
Bitter  exceedingly  the  passionate  grief 
That  wrings  to  agony  the  infant  heart: 
The  first  sharp  sorrow  : — Ay — the  breaking  up 
Of  that  deep  tbuntain  never  to  be  seal'd. 
Till  we  with  time  close  up  the  great  account. 
But  that  first  outbreak,  by  its  own  excess 
Exiiausted  soon  ;  exhausting  the  young  powers: 
The  quiv'ring  lip  relaxes  into  smiles. 
As  soothing  slumber,  softly  stealing  on ; 
Less  and  loss  frequent  comes  the  swelling  sob. 
Till  like  a  summer  breeze  it  dies  away; 
While  on  the  silken  eyelash,  and  the  check 
Flush'd  into  crimson,  hang  the  large  round  drops — 
Well  I  remember,  from  that  storm  of  grief 
Diverted  soon,  with  what  sensations  new 
Of  female  vanity — (inherent  sin!) 


THE    BIRTII-DAY.  355 

I  saw  myself  array '(]  in  mourning  frock, 

And  long  crape  sash Oli !  many  a  riper  grief 

Forgets  itself  as  soon,  before  a  glass 
Reflecting  the  becomingncss  of  weeds." 

To  learn  to  read  seems  the  easiest  of  all  affairs  after 
having  learned  to  speak.  We  can  conceive  how  a  creature 
under  two  years  of  age  picks  up  the  name  of  an  edible  or 
an  animal,  and  of  a  few  other  things,  such  as  a  stool  or 
a  table,  or  a  bed,  and  so  forth  ;  but  we  cannot  conceive 
how  it  masters  the  whole  English  language.  We  have 
known  children  about  that  lime  of  life  not  merely  voluble 
or  fluent  with  such  small  vocabulary,  but  with  a  com- 
mand of  words  that  might  well  be  called  eloquence.  Wc 
have  been  assured  on  good  authority,  that  we  ourselves 
preached  an  extemporary  sermon  the  first  Sunday  of  our 
fourth  year,  very  superior  to  our  most  successful  efforts 
in  that  line,  even  with  notes,  in  these  latter  times.  We 
knew  the  alphabet  from  the  beginning — one  day  with  Little 
Primer,  which  we  remember  thinking  very  tedious,  sufficed 
to  give  us  the  complete  mastery  over  him — Big  Primer 
we  cut — Goody-Two-Shoes,  though  most  interesting  as  a 
tale,  seemed  on  the  Tuesday  too  simple  in  its  style  to  satisfy 
such  a  proficient  —  and  we  went  j)^^'  saltum  to  Hume's 
History  of  England.  Caroline  Bowles  conquered  all  difTi- 
culties  with  almost  equal  facility — and  pardon  our  levity 
if  it  has  been  at  all  annoying — for  sake  of  the  following 
burst  of  feeling  from  the  pure  well-head  of  a  religious  heart. 

"  And  soon  attaia'd,  and  sweet  the  fruit  I  reap'd. 
Oil  !  never  ending,  ever  new  delight  I 
Stream  swelling  still  to  meet  the  eager  lip ! 
Receiving  as  it  flows  fresii  gushing  rills 
From  hidden  sources,  purer,  more  profound. 
Parents!  dear  parents!  if  the  latent  powers 
Cali'd  into  action  by  your  early  cares 
(God's  blessing  on  them  !)  had  attam'd  no  more 
Than  that  acquaintance  with  His  written  will, 
Your  lir;t  most  pious  purpose  to  instil, 
How  could  I  e'er  accjuit  me  of  a  debt 
Might  bankrupt  gratitude?     If  scant  my  stores 
Of  human  learning ; — to  my  mother-tongues 
(A  twofold  heritage)  well  nigh  confined 


356  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

My  skill  in  languages  ; — if  adverse  Fate — 

(Heathenish  phrase  !) — if  Providence  has  fix'd 

Barriers  impassable  'cross  many  a  path 

Anticipation  with  her  hopo-wing'd  feet, 

Youtlifuiiy  buoyant,  all  undoubting  trod; — 

If  in  the  mind's  infirmity,  erewhile, 

Thoughts  that  are  almost  murmurs  whisper  low 

Stinging  comparisons,  suggestions  sad, 

Of  what  I  am,  and  what  I  might  have  been — 

This  earth,  so  wide  and  glorious  !  I  fast  bound 

(A  human  lichen  !)  to  one  narrow  spot — 

A  sickly,  worthless  weed  !     Such  brave  bright  spirits, 

Starring  this  nether  sphere,  and  I — lone  wretch! 

Cut  oS'from  oral  intercourse  with  all — 

'  The  day  far  spent,'  and  oh  !  how  little  known  ; — 

The  night  at  hand — alas!  and  nothing  done; — 

And  neither  '  word,  nor  knowledge,  nor  device, 

Nor  wisdom,  in  the  grave  whereto  I  go.' 

When  thoughts  like  these  arise;  permitted  tests 
Proving  my  frailty — and  thy  mercy.  Lord  ! 
Let  but  thy  ministering  angel  draw  mine  eyes 
To  yonder  Book;  and  lo !  this  troublous  world 
Fades  from  before  me  like  a  morning  mist; 
And  in  a  spirit,  not  mine  own,  I  cry, 
'Perish  all  knowledge,  but  what  leads  to  thee!'" 

Let  these  Wnes  tell.  But  wee  Carry  is  again  before  us  ; 
and  she  lets  us  into  the  secret  of  the  intensity  of  her  desire 
to  be  able  to  read.  She  had  heard  Jane — you  need  not  be 
told  who  Jane  was — when  she  was  good-natured,  tell  fine 
stories  of  the  lady  who  walked  on  the  sea  of  glass  to  the 
ivory  hill — and  all  about  those  children  that  met  the  Fairy 
at  the  well,  and  the  toads,  and  frogs,  and  diamonds — and 
about  the  talking-bird  and  dancing  water,  and  the  singing 
bough,  and  Princess  Fairstar.  Jane  told  the  stories  not  so 
very  much  amiss ;  but  the  rapt  listener  longed  to  read 
them  for  herself  in  the  original  print — and  she  did  so,  as 
if  she  had  had  a  hundred  eyes. 

Strange  infatuation  !  that  a  person  of  acknowledged  good 
sense,  as  well  as  genius,  like  Caroline  Bowles,  should  even 
yet,  at  her  mature  age.  thus  more  than  countenance,  nay, 
recommend  such  absurd  tales — fairy  tales — as  fit  reading 
for  children   in  an  enlightened  age  like  this,  the  age  of 


THE    BIRTH-DAY.  357 

reason.  Like  other  bubbles,  all  burst !  And  are  not  all 
bubbles — of  earth,  or  of  water — born  but  to  burst  ?  The 
child  who  does  not  follow,  in  an  ecstasy  of  admiration, 
each  fit  intensified  by  each  glory,  the  slow  ascending  series 
of  illumined  wonders,  painted  planet  pursuing  painted  pla- 
net, nor  yet  the  extinction  of  the  phenomena  seeming  to 
destroy,  but  rather  to  deepen  the  beautiful  mystery  of  the 
day-light  stars — tiny  balloons  in  which  airy  elves  are 
voyaging — such  child,  stone-dead  to  the  magic  of  pipe  and 
saucer — insensible  as  a  stock  to  the  miracles  of  soap-suds 
— deserves — does  he  not — to  have  a  plaster  clapped  on 
his  mouth — to  be  burked — huddled  into  a  tea-chest — and 
sold  to  Nox  and  Erebus  ? 

Imagination  shrivels  up  like  a  bit  of  Indian  rubber,  in 
the  air  of  useful  knowledge.  No  toleration  now  for  any 
thing  that  will  not  stana  the  test  of  truth.  Nowhere 
Wisdom  with  children  round  her  knees;  every  where  Wise- 
acre with  mannikins.  Nature  is  incensed,  and  sorrows  to 
be  denied  the  education  of  her  own  offspring  ;  and  life  is 
without  her  sweetest  season,  the  spring.  The  imaginative 
literature  of  the  nursery  has  been  obliterated  by  an  irrup- 
tion more  barbarous  than  of  Goths  and  Huns  and  Vandals 
— for  hordes  of  schoolmasters  are  abroad,  and  the  realms 
of  fancy  overrun  are  desolate. 

Pray,  are  little  girls  yet  allowed  to  have  dolls?  'Tis 
hardly  correct.  The  spirit  of  the  age  is  impatient  of  such 
precocity  of  the  maternal  affection,  and  regards  with  favour 
only  the  cultivation  of  intellect.  But  the  spirit  of  the  age 
ought  to  reflect  on  this  great  truth,  that  to  children  dolls 
are  not  children,  but  grown-up  ladies.  They  have  chil- 
dren of  their  own;  and  though  home-loving,  are  often  ap- 
parelled for  palaces,  and  with  lace-veils  and  plumes  of 
feathers  prepare  to  pay  visits  to  kings  and  queens.  Let 
us  out  with  it — nor  blush  at  the  confession — our  first  love 
was  a  doll.  But  our  devoted  life  made  no  impression  on 
her  wooden  heart,  and  we  "  flung  her  over  the  bridge"  in 
passionate  despair.  Released  from  that  bondage,  we  not 
merely  "  kept  a  harem  in  our  hearts,"  but  under  our  bed, 
while  the  chamber-maid  fondly  imagined  they  were  nine- 
pins— and  one  morning,  out  of  pure  malice,  swept  them  all 
away  in  her  bakey  with  other  refuse.  While  yet  we  were 
mourning  their  loss,  lo  ! 


358  Wilson's  miscellaneous  avritings. 

"  Like  a  ladye  from  a  far  countree," 

and  laid  there  by  hands  unseen  on  the  counterpane  of  our 
crib, 

"  A  creature  not  too  bright  or  good 
For  human  nature's  daily  food, 
For  transient  sorrows,  simple  wiles, 
Praise,  blame,  love,  kisses,  tears,  and  smiles  !" 

What  flesh  so  exquisitely  beautiful  as  wax  1  There  is  a 
delicacy  in  that  material,  to  the  inexperienced  imagination, 
lovelier  far  than  of  breathing  life.  Her  face  wore  one 
unchanging  smile,  so  still  that  sometimes  we  almost  feared 
she  might  be  dead.  One  evening,  while  we  were  far  off 
in  the  woods,  she  was  spirited  away,  and  we  never  beheld 
her  again  but  in  our  sleep.  We  think  we  see  her  now  I 
But  hear  Miss  Bowles. 

"Lo!  what  a  train  like  Bluebeard's  wives  appear, 
So  many  headless  !  half  dismember'd  some, 
With  batter'd  faces — eyeless — noseless — grim 
With  crack'd  enamel,  and  unsightly  scars — 
Some  with  bald  pates,  or  hempen  wigs  unfrizzed, 
And  ghastly  stumps,  like  Greenwich  pensioners; 
Others  mere  Torsos — arms,  legs,  heads,  all  gone  ! 
But  precious  all.     And  chief  that  veteran  doll, 
She,  from  whose  venerable  face  is  worn 
All  prominence  of  feature:  shining  brown 
(Like  chestnut  from  its  prickly  coating  freed) 
VVith  equal  polish  as  the  wigless  skull — 
Well  I  remember,  with  what  bribery  won 
Of  a  fair  rival — one  of  waxen  mould 
(Long  coveted  possession  !)  I  was  brought 
The  mutilated  fav'rite  to  resign, 
The  blue-eyed  fair  one  came — perfection's  self! 
With  eager  joy  I  clasp'd  her  waxen  charms; 
But  then  the  stipulated  sacrifice  ! 
'  And  must  we  part  V  my  piteous  looks  exprcss'd — 
(Mute  eloquence  !)  '  And  ynitst  we  part,  dear  Stump!' 
'  Oh !  might  I  keep  ye  both  !' — and  both  I  kept." 

Caroline  had  a  genius  for  drawing  in  her  childhood  (and 
she  is  an  artist  now)  and  it  was  her  delight  to  clip  out  in 
paper  semblances  of  all    the  animals    that   issued   from 


THE  BIRTH-DAY.  359 

Noah's  ark.  That  pastime  is  common  to  most  children  ; 
but  bless  us,  what  a  ditrerence  in  their  handiwork !  She 
studied  the  prints  in  Goldsmith — traditionary  Hkenesses  of 
lions  and  lynxes — staring  likenesses  not  to  be  mistaken — 
incorrigible  tigers,  though  punished  with  more  than  forty 
stripes,  and  leopards  sorry  to  change  their  spots.  And 
was  Miss  remiss  at  her  needle?  Sew — sew,  except  when 
fashioning 

"Gay  garments  for  the  family  of  dolls," 

and  then  the  small  poetess  was  happy, 

"  No  matter  how  they  fitted,  they  were  made." 

And  now,  ye  statesmen  !  home  and  foreign  secretaries, 
lord  chancellors,  and  prime  ministers,  fling  your  gewgaws 
aside,  and  hear  tell  of  a  silver  thimble. 

"  Precious  gifl  bestow'd 
By  a  kind  aunt ;  one  ever  kind  and  good. 
Mine  early  benefactress !  since  approved 
By  time  and  trial  mine  unchanging  friend  ; 
Yet  most  endear'd  by  the  affecting  bond 
Of  mutual  sorrows,  mutual  sympathies." 

'Tis  a  beautiful  flight  of  fancy,  and  nothing  can  well  be 
more  pathetic  than  the  return  to  reality  at  the  close. 

"  Yet  was  that  implement  (the  first  possess'd,) 
Proudly  possess'd  indeed,  but  seldom  worn. 
Easier  to  me,  and  pleasanter,  to  poke, 
As  one  should  poke  a  skewer,  the  needle  through 
With  thumb  and  finger,  than  in  silver  thrall 
T'  imprison  the  small  tip,  too  tiny  still 
For  smallest  thimble  ever  made  to  fit. 
Dear  aunt !  you  should  have  sought  in  wizard  lore 
The  name  of  some  ariificer,  empower'd 
By  royal  patent  of  the  Elfin  Court 
To  make  Mab's  thimble — if  the  sprightly  queen 
Ever  indeed  vouchsafes  in  regal  sport, 
With  needle,  from  the  eyelash  of  a  fly, 
Pluck'd  sharp  and  shining,  and  fine  cobweb-thread, 
T'  embroider  her  light  scarf  of  gossamer. 
Not  oft  1  doubt ;  she  better  loves  to  rove 


360  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

Where  trembling  harebells  on  the  green  hill  side 

Wave  in  their  azure  beauty  ;  or  to  t-iide 

On  a  slant  sunbeam  down  the  fragrant  tube 

Of  honeysuckle  or  sweet  columbine, 

And  sip  luxurious  the  ambrosial  feast 

Stored  there  for  nature's  alchemist,  the  bee, 

Then  satiate,  and  at  rest,  to  sleep  secure, 

Even  in  that  perfumed  chamber,  till  the  sun 

Has  plough'd  with  flaming  wheels  the  Atlantic  wave, 

And  the  dark  beetle,  her  mail'd  sentinel, 

Winds  her  shrill  signal  to  invite  her  forth. 

Not  on  her  waking  hour  such  pomp  attends, 

As  when  on  Ohio's  banks  magnolias  tall 

Embalm  the  dews  of  night,  and  living  sparks 

Glance  through  the  leaves,  and  star  the  deep  serene. 

But  even  here,  in  our  romantic  isle. 

The  pearl  of  ocean,  girdled  with  its  foam! 

Land  of  the  rainbow  !  even  here  she  loves 

The  dewy  freshness  of  the  silent  hour. 

Whose  gentle  vvaftings  have  their  incense  too. 

To  scatter  in  her  paths;  the  faint  perfume 

Of  dog-rose  pale,  or  aromatic  breath 

Of  purple  wild  thyme,  clouding  the  green  sward; 

And  though  in  air  no  sparkling  myriads  dart 

Their  glancing  fires  to  light  the  fairy  queen, 

Earth  hath  her  stars,  a  living  emerald  each ! 

And  by  the  lustre  of  those  dewy  gems 

She  trips  it  deftly  with  her  merry  train 

In  mossy  dells,  around  the  time-scarr'd  trunk 

Of  giant  oak  ;  or  'neath  the  witch  elm's  shade, 

Beside  some  deep  dark  pool,  where  one  bright  star 

Trembles  reflected  ;  or  in  velvet  meads. 

Where,  though  the  limpid  blade  of  tender  grass 

Bends  not  beneath  the  '  many-twinkling'  feet, 

Dark  circles  on  the  paler  sward  defined 

Reveal  at  morning  where  the  dance  has  been; 

Oft  thickly  studded  witii  a  mushroom  belt, 

The  fungus  growth  of  one  short  summer's  night, 

Tiie  ring  so  geometrically  drawn. 

As  if  the  gnomes  with  scientific  skill 

(Forming  the  fairy  sports)  had  mimicked  there 

The  circling  rampart  of  a  Celtic  camp, 

(^r  with  more  apt  similitude  design'd 

The  Druid's  holy  ring  of  pale  gray  stones. 

Tliere  oft  tiie  milkmaid,  when  with  shining  pail 

She  seeks  the  glistening  pasture,  finds  dispersed 

The  relics  of  tiie  banquet;  leaves  and  flowers. 


THE  BIRTII-DAV.  361 

From  golden  kingcups  croppM,  and  poplars  white, 

The  Clips  and  trenchers  of  tlic  midnight  feast. 

All,  lucky  lass!  when  stirring  with  the  lark, 

On  dairy  charge  intent,  she  tiiither  hies 

And  finds  her  task  forestalled — the  cool  tiled  floor 

P"'looded,  fresh  sluiced  ;  stool,  shelf,  and  slab  bright  rubb'd ; 

Scalded  and  sweet  the  glazy  milk-pans  all ; 

And  scower'd  to  silver  sheen  the  ready  pail; 

And  brighter  still,  within  its  circle  left. 

The  glittering  sixpence — industry's  reward. 

Me  more  delighted,  in  the  fairy's  hannts 
To  sport,  like  them  an  airy  gleesome  sprite, 
Than,  prisoner  of  an  hour — e'en  that  too  long, 
The  needle's  task  monotonous  to  ply. 
But  I  have  lived  to  prize  the  humble  art, 
To  number  with  the  happiest  of  my  life 
Those  quiet  evenings,  when  with  busy  hands 
I  plied  the  needle,  listening  as  I  wrought 
(By  that  mechanical  employ,  more  fix'd 
Attention  apt  to  rove)  to  that  dear  voice 
Which  from  some  fav'rite  author  read  aloud. 
The  voice  is  silent,  and  the  task  laid  by — 
Distasteful  now,  when  silence,  with  a  tongue 
More  audibly  intelligent  than  speech, 
For  ever  whispers  round  me,  '  She  is  gone.'  " 

Miss  Bowles  then  alludes  to  her  girlish  love  of  poetry, 
and  her  earliest  attempts  at  verse ;  and  in  one  of  several 
touching  passages,  indited  in  the  same  spirit,  with  unafTected 
humility,  adds — 

"  Nature  in  me  hath  still  her  worshipper, 
And  in  my  soul  her  mighty  spirit  still 
Awakes  sweet  music,  tones,  and  symphonies. 
Struck  by  the  master-hand  from  every  chord. 
But  prodigal  of  feeling,  she  withholds 
The  glorious  power  to  pour  its  fulness  out; 
And  in  mid-song  I  falter,  faint  at  heart, 
With  consciousness  that  every  feeble  note 
But  yields  to  the  awakening  harmony 
A  weak  response — a  trembling  echo  still." 

"  We  would  not  hear  thy  enemy  say  so ;"  but  where 
lives  enemy  of  one  like  thee  'i  Not  under  the  cope  of 
heaven.     AH  who  read  thy  writings  must  be  thy  friends, 

VOL.  I.  31 


362  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

and  all  lovers  of  nature  must  feel)  as  they  peruse  them, 
that  few  have  painted  its  beauties  with  a  more  delicate 
hand  of  truth.  To  be  creative  in  after  life  of  the  delights 
that  feed  and  sustain  it,  under  all  changes  of  place  and 
time,  the  love  of  nature  must  be  inspired  into  the  heart  by 
communion  with  her  in  life's  blissful  morn.  Not  other- 
wise can  that  communion  be  so  intimate  and  familiar  as  to 
"  involuntary  move  harmonious  numbers ;"  for  the  heart 
and  the  imagination  derive  their  power  from  impressions 
received  farther  back  than  memory  can  reach,  and  the 
sources  of  inspiration  lie  hidden  among  the  golden  hills  of 
the  Orient. 

Who  was  the  favourite  poet  of  her  childhood?  Thom- 
son.    How  finely  is  his  genius  characterized  ! 

"  And  was  it  chance,  or  thy  prevailing  taste, 
Beloved  instructress  !  that  selected  first 
(Part  of  my  daily  task)  a  portion  short, 
CuU'd  from  thy  '  Seasons,'  Thomson? — Happy  choice, 
Howe'er  directed,  happy  choice  for  me  ; 
For  as  I  read,  new  thoughts,  new  images 
Thrill'd  through  my  heart,  with  undefined  delight, 
Awakening  so  th'  incipient  elements 
Of  tastes  and  sympathies,  that  with  my  life 
Have  grown  and  strengthened  ;  often  on  its  course, 
Yea — on  its  darkest  moments,  shedding  soft 
That  ricii  warm  glow  they  only  can  impart; 
A  sensibility  to  nature's  charms 
That  seems  its  living  spirit  to  infuse 
(A  breathing  soul)  in  things  inanimate; 
To  hold  communion  with  ihe  stirring  air. 
The  breath  of  flowers,  the  ever  shifting  clouds, 
The  rustling  leaves,  the  music  of  the  stream, 
To  people  solitude  with  airy  shapes. 
And  the  dark  hour,  when  night  and  silence  reigns. 
With  immaterial  forms  of  other  worlds  : 
But  best  and  noblest  privilege  !  to  feel 
Pervading  nature's  all-harmonious  whole, 
The  great  Creator's  presence,  in  his  works." 

The  Birth-Day  is  truly  a  religious  poem ;  but  though 
the  spirit  of  religion  pervades  it,  how  unobtrusive  its  ex- 
pression !  Piety  fears  to  make  free  with  holiest  words, 
and  utter  them  but  in  the  fulness  of  heart.     Religious  ser- 


THE  BIRTH-DAY.  363 

vices  are  nowhere  formally  described  ;  but  all  their  due 
observances  and  performances  are  reverently  intimated  ; 
and  we  are  made  to  know,  in  almost  all  the  most  serious 
or  solemn  pages — and  sometimes,  too,  in  those  of  lighter 
mood — 

"  That  piety  is  sweet  to  infant  minds." 

Yet  joy  is  graciously  provided  to  them  from  many  sources  ; 
in  innocence  they  do  the  will  of  God ;  they  are  not  for- 
getful of  Him,  though  conscious  but  of  the  happiness  in 
which  they  swim  along  ;  and  their  prayers  are  acceptable 
at  His  throne,  though  the  moment  before,  or  the  moment 
after  they  have  been  uttered,  the  kneeling  child  had  been 
all  gleeful,  or  flies  off  with  her  playmates,  thoughtless  as 
lambs  frisking  in  the  morning  sun. 
Caroline  had  her  own  flower-garden. 

"  Flowers  of  all  hues,  and  Vi/ithout  thorn  the  rose." 

Here  she  is  at  work. 

"Full  oft  1  pause  with  reminiscent  eye 
Upon  the  little  spot  of  border-ground 
Once  called  '■my  garden.'     Proud  accession  that 
To  territorial  right  and  power  supreme  ! 
To  right  possessive,  the  exclusive  mine 
So  soon  asserted,  e'en  by  infant  tongue. 
Methinks  the  thick-sown  parallels  I  see 
Of  thriving  mustard,  herb  of  rapid  growth  ! 
The  only  one  whose  magical  increase 
Keeps  pace  with  young  impatience,  that  expects 
Ripe  pulse  to-morrow  from  seed  sown  to-day. 
To-morrow  and  to-morrow  passes  on, 
And  still  no  vestige  of  ih'  incipient  plant ; 
No  longer  to  be  borne,  the  third  day's  sun 
Beholds  the  little  fingers  delving  deep 
T'  unearth  the  buried  seed  ;  and  up  it  comes 
Just  swelling  into  vegetable  life; 
Of  which  assured,  into  the  mould  again 
'Tis  stuck,  a  little  Clearer  to  the  top. 
Such  was  the  process  horticultural 
I  boldly  practised  in  my  new  domain : 
As  little  chance  of  rest,  as  little  chance 
To  live  and  thrive  had  slip  or  cutting  there; 
Which  failing  in  three  days  to  sprout  amain, 


364  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

Was  twitched  impatient  up,  with  curious  eye 
Examined;  and  if  fibrous  threads  appeared, 
VVitii  renovated  hope  replanted  soon. 

"  But  thriving  plants  were  there,  though  not  of  price. 
No  puny  children  of  a  foreign  soil, 
But  hardy  natives  of  our  own  dear  earth, 
From  many  a  field  and  bank,  and  streamlet  side 
Transplanted  careful,  with  the  adhering  mould. 
The  primrose,  with  her  large  indented  leaves 
And  many  blossoms  pale,  expanded  there ; 
With  wild  anemone,  and  hyacinth. 
And  languid  cowslip,  lady  of  the  mead. 
And  violets  mingled  hues  of  every  sort, 
Blue,  white,  and  purple.     The  more  fragrant  white 
Ev'n  from  that  very  root,  in  many  a  patch 
Extended  wide,  still  scents  the  garden  round. 
Maternal  love  received  the  childish  gift, 
A  welcome  offering,  and  the  lowly  flower 
(A  rustic  stranger)  bloom'd  with  cultured  sweets; 
And  still  it  shares  their  bed,  encroaching  oft 
(So  ignorance  presumes)  on  worthier  claims. 
She  spared  it,  in  the  tenderness  of  love, 
Her  child's  first  gift ;  and  I,  for  her  dear  sake, 
Who  prized  the  pale  intruder,  spare  it  now." 

Loved  occupations  !  Blameless  calm  delights  !  she  fer- 
vently exclaims — I  taste  ye  with  as  keen  enjoyment  still 
as  in  my  days  of  childhood  !  She  confesses  to  have  laid 
aside  even  this  crescent  poem  on  her  birth-day,  and  stolen 
forth  on  a  moonless  night  to  search  by  lantern  light  among 
the  leaves  for  the  spoilers  that  issue  from  the  worm-holes 
to  prey  upon  the  dewy  buds  of  the  peeping  larkspur,  and 
a  charming  passage  closes  with  some  lines  that  will  glad- 
den the  heart  of  the  amiable  author  of  the  "  Moral  of 
Flowers,"  not  more  beautiful  than  many  of  her  own.  She 
has  been  speaking  of  a  thaw,  and  says, — 

"  Yielding  and  moist  becomes  the  darkning  mould. 
And  from  that  snow-heaped  border  melts  away 
The  drifted  wreath  ;  it  shrinks  and  disappears. 
And  lo !  as  by  enchantment,  in  its  place 
A  rainbow  streaks  the  ground — a  flowery  prism 
Of  crocus  tribes  innumerous  to  the  sun. 
Expanding  with  their  gold  and  purple  stars." 


THE    BlUTH-DAY.  365 

Such  a  rainbow  we  heard  Mary  Howitt,  with  her  "  soft 
low  voice,  an  excellent  thing  in  woman,"  describe  one 
evening  in  Edinburgh — till  we  saw  it  on  that  plain,  by  the 
side  of  the  clear-flowing  Trent,  near  the  pleasant  town  of 
Nottingham.  You  all  know  what  we  meant  above,  when 
saying  a  few  words  about  the  religion  in  this  poem,  by  the 
conclusion  of  the  first  part.  Miss  Bowles  touches  on  the 
Christian  moral  to  be  found  in  such  a  sight,  and  having 
spoken  of  the  uses  of  adversity,  "  like  that  pale  snow- 
wreath,"  imparting  a  fertilizing  warmth  that  penetrates  the 
surface  of  obdurate  worldliness,  says — 

"Then  from  the  barren  waste,  no  longer  such. 
Ripening  a  thousand  aniarantliino  flowers 
Whose  fragrance  swells  to  heaven.     Desires  chastised. 
Enlarged  atTections,  tender  cliarilies. 
Long  suffering  mercy,  and  the  snow-drop  buds 
Of  heavenly  meekness — These,  and  thousands  more 
As  beautiful,  as  kindly,  are  called  forth, 
Adversity  !  beneath  thy  fostering  shade." 

On  a  grass  plat  by  the  house-door  there  stood  an  old  wil- 
low, on  a  transverse  bough  of  which  Mr.  Bowles  had  hung 
a  swing  for  his  Carry — not  unlike,  we  daresay,  that  with 
its  nicely  balanced  seat  (a  chair  with  arms)  got  up  by  our- 
selves a  few  summers  ago,  chiefly  for  Mrs.  Gentle — though 
we  occasionally  take  a  turn  or  two,  to  tranquilize  our  mind 
at  a  crisis  in  public  affairs.  Once,  and  only  once,  we  had 
the  hardihood  to  try  how  it  carried  double  ;  but  the  conse- 
quences of  that  adventure  had  nearly  been  fatal ;  for  the 
chair  capsized,  and  its  precious  cargo  found  themselves  on 
the  sward,  Mrs.  Gentle  in  a  swoon.  The  scene  was  by 
moonlight,  and  nothing  in  the  shape  of  assistance  was  at 
hand.  Our  belief  is  that  we  fell  asleep ;  and  that  we  and 
the  morning  all  awoke  together,  to  the  sound  of  a  falling 
fountain,  and  a  treeful  of  birds.  But  to  return  from  that 
digression,  there  Caroline  used 

"  to  sway 
With  pendulous  slow  motion,  dying  off 
To  scarce  perceptible,  until  at  last 
Settling  to  perfect  stillness ;" 

building  all  the  while  many  a  fair  castle  in  cloud-land,  and 
31* 


366  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

conjuring  up  gorgeous  palaces  by  the  sides  of  all  the  fa- 
mous rivers  in  the  regions  of  old  romance. 

My  dear  girl,  why  do  you  shudder  so  at  the  very  idea 
of  a  toad,  and  writhe  your  features  into  an  expression  of 
disgust  and  horror?  Nobody  is  asking  you  to  put  it  into 
your  bosom — don't  faint,  for  if  you  do  we  must  kiss  you 
back  into  animation — or  under  your  pillow.  But  let  it 
crawl  across  the  gravel  path,  from  shade  to  shade,  unre- 
viled,  for  after  all  it  is  not  ugly — and  the  lustre  of  its  eyes, 
as  you  may  have  heard,  is  proverbial.  Disgust  is  a  habit. 
But  'tis  most  unlike  you,  sweet,  to  cherish  anjr  such  feel- 
ing towards  any  one  of  God's  creatures.  No  merit  in 
loving  birds  and  butterflies,  for  they  are  manifestly  beau- 
tiful, and  in  sympathizing  with  all  the  displays  of  their 
joy,  you  are  pleasurably  moved  by  signs  or  symbols  of 
your  own  happy  prime.  But  reptiles,  slimy  creatures, 
palmer-worms,  and  caterpillars — let  them  find  favour  in 
your  sight,  and  we  will  lay  our  hand  on  your  head  with  a 
prouder  blessing.  Remember  that  ladies  have  been  changed 
into  toads  ;  Caroline  Bowles,  when  a  mere  child,  bethought 
her  of  that  metamorphosis,  and  entitled  her  poor  toad 
"  Princess  Hemjunah." 

"Fowls  of  the  air,  and  beasts,  and  creeping  things, 
Ay,  reptiles — slimy  creatures — all  that  breathed 
The  breath  of  life,  found  favour  in  my  sight ; 
And  strange  disgust  I've  seen  (/  thought  it  strange) 
Wrinkle  their  features  who  beheld  me  touch. 
Handle,  caress  the  creatures  tliey  abhorr'd; 
Enchase  my  finger  with  the  palmer-worm 
Or  caterpillar's  green,  cold,  clammy  ring, 
Or  touch  the  rough  back  of  the  spotted  toad. 
One  of  that  species,  for  long  after  years, 
Ev'n  till  of  late,  became  my  pensioner — 
A  monstrous  creature ! — It  was  wont  to  sit 
Among  the  roots  of  an  old  scraggy  shrub, 
A  huge  Gum-Cystus:  All  the  summer  long 
'  Princes  Hemjunah'  (titled  so  by  me 
In  honour  of  that  royal  spell-bound  fair 
So  long  compell'd  in  reptile  state  to  crawl), 
'  Princess  Hemjunah'  there  from  morn  to  eve 
Made  her  pavilion  of  the  spicy  shrub; 
And  they  who  look'd  beneath  it,  scarce  discern'd 
That  livinof  clod  from  the  surroundin'j  mould 


THE    BIRTII-DAV.  307 

But  by  the  lustre  of  two  livin^r  gems 

That  from  the  reptile's  forehead  upward  beain'd 

Intelligent,  with  ever-wakeful  gaze. 

There  daily  on  some  fresh  green  leaf  I  spread 

A  luscious  banquet  for  that  uncouth  guest — 

Milk,  cream,  and  sugar, — to  the  creature's  taste 

Right  welcome  offering,  unrejected  still. 

"  When  Autumn  wind's  gan  strew  the  crisped  leaves 
Round  that  old  Cystus,  to  some  lonelier  haunt, 
Some  dark  retreat  the  hermit  reptile  crawl'd; 
Belike  some  grotto,  'ncath  the  hollow  roots 
Of  ancient  laurel  or  thick  juniper, 
Whose  everlasting  foliage  darkly  gleam'd 
Through  the  bare  branches  of  deciduous  trees. 
There  self-imrnured,  the  livelong  winter  through, 
Brooded  unseen  the  solitary  thing: 
E'en  when  young  Spring  with  violet-printed  steps 
Brush'd  the  white  hoar-frost  from  her  morning  path, 
The  creature  stirr'd  not  from  its  secret  cell : 
But  on  some  balmy  morn  of  rip'ning  June, 
Some  morn  of  perfect  smnmer,  waken'd  up 
With  choirs  of  music  pour'd  from  every  bush, 
Dews  dropping  incense  from  tli'  unfolding  leaves 
Of  hall-blown  roses,  and  the  gentle  South 
Exhaling,  blending,  and  diffusing  sweets — 
Then  was  I  sure  on  some  such  morn  to  find 
My  princess  crouch'd  in  her  accustom'd  form 
Beneath  the  Cystus. 

So  for  many  years 
— Ay — as  I  said,  till  late,  she  came  and  went, 
And  came  again  when  summer  suns  return'd — 
All  knew  and  spared  the  creature  for  my  sake, 
Not  without  comment  on  the  strange  caprice 
Protecting  such  deform'd  detected  thing. 
But  in  a  luckless  iiour — an  autumn  morn. 
About  the  time  when  my  poor  toad  withdrew 
(Annually  punctual)  to  her  winter  house. 
The  axe  and  pruning-knife  were  set  at  work — 
— (Ah  !  uncle  Philip  !  with  unsparing  zeal 
You  urged  them  on)  to  lop  the  straggling  boughs 
Whose  rank  luxuriance  from  the  parent  stem 
Drain'd  for  their  useless  growth  too  large  supply ; 
Branch  after  branch  condemn'd  fell  thickly  round, 
Till,  moderate  retbrm  intended  first, 
(Nice  task  to  fix  the  boundary  !)  edged  on, 
Encroaching  still  to  radical ;  and  soon 


368  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

Uncheck'd  the  devastating  fury  raged, 

And  shoots,  and  boughs,  and  limbs  bestrew'd  the  ground, 

And  all  denuded  and  exposed — sad  sight ! 

The  mangled  trees  held  out  their  ghastly  stumps. 

"  Spring  reappear'd,  and  trees  and  shrubs  put  forth 
Their  budding  leaves,  and  e'en  those  mangled  trunks 
(Though  later)  felt  the  vegetable  life 
Mount  in  their  swelling  sap,  and  all  around 
The  recently  dismember'd  parts,  peep'd  out — 
Pink  tender  shoots  disparting  into  green. 
And  bursting  forih  at  lasi,  with  rapid  growth. 
In  full  redundance — healthful,  vig'rous,  thick  ; 
And  June  return'd  with  all  her  breathing  sweets. 
Her  op'ning  roses  and  soft  southern  gales ; 
And  music  pour'd  from  ev'ry  bending  spray ; 
E'en  the  old  mangled  Cystus  bloom'd  once  more. 
But  my  poor  princess  never  came  again." 

No  sentimentalism  about  the  poetry  of  Caroline  Bowies. 
She  had  her  wild-tame  hare,  and  her  rabbits,  and  dormice, 
and  squirrel,  and  cats  and  kittens,  and  dogs  of  many  a 
race,  from  ancient  Di  to  Black  Mungo,  and  her  own  gentle 
playfellow  Chloe,  and  her  gallant  Juba,  and  her  pet  sheep 
called  Willy,  a  palfrey  of  mettled  blood,  not  to  mention 
jackdaws,  magpies,  bullfinches,  turtle-doves,  and  owls, 
and  many  other  manner  of  birds.  But  their  keep  cost 
but  little;  some  of  them  were  useful,  and  all  of  them  were 
happy;  and  she  herself,  the  happiest  of  them  all,  did  not 
forget — the  poor.     For  she  was  one  of  the 

"  Sound  healthy  children  of  the  God  of  heaven  ;" 

and  the  j'^oung  hands  that  are  duly  held  up  in  prayer  are 
always  "  open  as  day  to  melting  charity  ;"  and  there  is 
not  a  lovelier  sight  beneath  the  skies  than  a  meek-eyed 
maiden  in  hovel  or  by  wayside  silently  giving  alms. 

Here  is  a  picture  that  almost  equals  Cowper's  Peasant's 
Nest. 

"  Bid  them  turn 
(Those  sentimental  chemics,  who  extract 
The  essence  of  imaginary  griefs 
From  overwrought  refinement),  bid  them  turn 


THE  I5IRTI1-DAY.  369 

To  some  poor  cottage — not  a  bower  of  sweets 

Where  woodbines  cluster  o'er  the  neat  warm  thatch, 

And  mad  Marias  sing  fantastic  ditties, 

But  to  some  wretched  hut,  whose  crazy  walls. 

Crumbling  with  age  and  dripping  damps,  scarce  prop 

Tiie  rotten  roof,  all  verdant  with  decay  ; 

Unlatch  the  door,  those  starting  planks  that  ill 

Keep  out  the  wind  and  rain,  and  bid  them  look 

At  the  home-comforts  of  the  scene  within. 

There  on  the  hearth  a  tew  fresh-gathered  sticks, 

Or  smouldering  sods,  diffuse  a  feeble  warmlii, 

Fann'd  by  that  kneeling  woman's  lab'ring  breath 

Into  a  transient  flame,  o'erhanging  which 

Cowers  close,  with  outspread  palms,  a  haggard  form, 

But  yesterday  raised  up  from  the  sick-bed 

Of  wasting  fever,  yet  to-night  return'd 

From  the  resumption  of  his  daily  toil. 

'  Too  hastily  resumed — imprudent  man  !' 

Ay,  but  his  famish'd  infants  cried  for  bread ; 

So  he  went  forth  and  strove,  till  nature  fail'd, 

And  the  faint  dews  of  weakness  gather'd  thick 

In  the  dark  hollows  of  iiis  sallow  cheek. 

And  round  his  white-parched  lips.    Then  home  he  crawl'd 

To  the  cold  comforts  of  that  cheerless  hearth. 

And  of  a  meal  whose  dainties  are  set  out 

Invitingly — a  cup  of  coarse  black  tea. 

With  milk  unmingled,  and  a  crust  of  bread. 

No  infant  voices  welcome  his  return 

With  joyous  clamour,  but  the  piteous  wail, 

'  Father  !  I'm  liungry — Father !  give  me  bread  !' 

Salutes  him  from  the  little-huddled  group 

Beside  that  smoky  flame,  where  one  poor  babe. 

Shaking  with  ague-chills,  creeps  shuddering  in 

Between  its  mother's  knees — that  most  forlorn, 

Most  wretched  mother,  with  sad  lullaby 

Hushing  the  sickly  infant  at  her  breast, 

Whose  scanty  nourishment  yet  drains  her  life." 

You  must  not  think  that  the  whole  poenn  is  about  the 
author's  childhood.  How  could  it?  Herself  of  the  pre- 
sent speaks  of  her  own  thoughts  and  feelings,  even  when 
in  contrast,  still  harmonious  with  those  of  herself  of  the 
past;  for  so  it  ever  is  with  a  well-ordered  life,  whose 
growth  has  been  unconstrained,  and  left  free  to  the  spon- 
taneity of  nature.     Caroline   BowleSj  as   every   poetess 


370  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

must  be,  is  a  devout  conservative.  But  mark  us  well — of 
what?  Of  all  that,  for  its  own  dear  sake,  she  has  once 
loved,  and  taken  to  her  heart. 

"  Old  friend  !  old  stone !  old  way-mark  !  art  thou  gone  1 
I  could  have  better  spared  a  better  thing 
Than  sight  of  thy  familiar  shapeless  form, 
Defaced  and  weather-stain'd." 

And  again  in  sportive  sadness — 

"  Beautiful  elms!  your  spreading  branches  fell, 
Because,  forsooth  !  across  the  king's  highway, 
Conspiring  with  the  free-born,  charter'd  air, 
Your  verdant  branches  treasonably  waved. 
And  swung  perchance  the  pendant  dew-drop  oft' 
On  roof  of  royal  mail,  or  on  the  eyes 
Of  sleepy  coachman,  waken'd  so  full  well 
For  safety  of  his  snoring  '  four  insides,' 
Unconscious  innocents !" 

Worse  and  worse ;  the  oak  that  for  time  immemorial  had 
stood  intercepting  no  sunbeam,  and  flinging  no  shadow, 
has  fallen  at  the  decree  of  the  "  Great  Road  Dragon." 
Yet  there  had  been 

"Only  left  of  thee 
The  huge  old  trunk,  still  verdant  in  decay 
With  ivy  garlands,  and  a  tender  growth 
(Like  second  childhood)  of  thine  own  young  shoots; 
And  there,  like  giant  guardian  of  the  pass. 
Thou  stand'st,  majestic  ruin  !  thy  i)uge  roots 
(Whose  every  fretted  niche  and  mossy  cave 
Harbour'd  a  primrose)  grappling  the  steep  bank, 
A  wayside  rampart.     Lo  !  they've  rent  away 
The  living  bulwark  now,  a  ghastly  breach, 
A  crumbling  hollow  left  to  mark  its  site,"  &c. 

And  more  beautiful  still — 

"  And  the  old  thorns  are  gone — the  thorns  I  loved, 
For  that  in  childhood  I  could  reach  and  pluck 
Their  first  sweet  blossoms.     They  were  low  like  me. 
Young,  lowly  bushes,  I  a  little  child. 
And  we  grew  up  together.     They  are  gone ; 
And  the  great  elder  by  the  mossy  pales — 


THE  RIUTII-DAY.  371 

How  sweet  the  blackbird  sang  in  that  old  tree  ! 
Sweeter,  methink.s,  than  now,  from  statelier  shades — 
They've  fell'd  that  too — the  goodly  harmless  thing! 
That  with  its  fragrant  clusters  overhung 
Our  garden  hedge,  and  furnish'd  its  ricli  store 
Of  juicy  berries  for  the  Christmas  wine 
Spicy  and  hot,  and  its  round  hollow  stems 
(The  pith  extracted)  for  quaint  arrow  heads, 
Such  as  my  fatlier  in  our  archery  games 
Taught  me  to  fashion.     Tliat  they've  ta'en  away. 
And  so  some  relic  daily  disappears, 
.  Something  I've  loved  and  prized  ;  and  now  the  last — 
Almost  the  last — the  poor  old  milestone  falls. 
And  in  its  place  this  smooth,  white,  perk'd  up  thing. 
With  its  great  staring  figures." 

No  change  would  our  bitter-sweet  Conservative  suffer  ; 
and  had  her  will  been  the  rule  of  action,  strange  results, 
she  confesses, 

"  Would  shock  the  rational  community." 

No  farmer  should  clip  one  straggling  hedge — on  pain  of 
transportation  for  life;  no  road-surveyor  change  one  rug- 
ged stone,  nor  pare  one  craggy  bank,  nor  lop  one  way- 
side tree,  unless  bent  to  be  hanged. 

"  I'd  have  the  road 
One  bowery  arch,  what  matter  it  so  low 
No  mail  might  pass  beneath  ^     For  aught  I  care 
The  post  might  come  on  foot — or  not  at  all. 
In  short,  in  short,  it's  quite  as  well,  perhaps, 
I  can  but  rail,  not  rule.     Splenetic  wrath 
Will  not  lack  on  again  dissever'd  boughs, 
Nor  set  up  the  old  stones;  so  let  me  breathe 
The  fulness  of  a  vexed  spirit  out 
In  impotent  murmurs." 

Caroline  was  an  only  child.  There  is  little  or  nothing 
said  about  any  companions  of  her  own  age — and  yet  as 
she  seems  never  to  have  felt  the  want  of  them,  why  should 
we  ?  though  sometimes  we  have  been  expecting  to  see 
some  elf  like  herself  come  gliding  into  the  poem.  A 
loving  heart  is  never  at  a  loss  for  objects  of  its  love.    The 


372  avilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

natural  affections  attach  themselves  to  the  thoughts  or 
ideas  of  all  life's  holiest  relations;  and  doubtless  the  glad 
girl  had  then  brothers  and  sisters  in  her  dreams.  Per- 
haps had  the  house  been  full  of  them  in  flesh  and  blood, 
she  had  never  been  a  poetess.  Solitary  but  never  sad, 
and  alone,  except  with  mute  creatures,  in  her  very  pas- 
times, yet  never  out  of  sight  of  parental  eyes,  or  reach  of 
parental  hands,  her  thoughtful  nature  became  moi'e  and 
more  thoughtful  in  her  happiness  flowing  ever  from  and 
back  upon  herself,  and  thus  she  learnt  to  think  on  her  own 
heart,  and  to  hark  to  the  small  still  voice  that  never  de- 
ceives, 

"  While  life  is  calm  and  innocent." 

Merry  as  she  is,  and  frolicsome 

"  As  a  young  fawn  at  play," 

there  is  a  repose  over  the  poem  which  for  the  most  part 
breathes  the  spirit  of  still  life.  Speaking  of  her  father, 
she  says, 

"  Soon  came  the  days, 
When  his  companion,  his — his  only  one, 
My  fatiier's  I  became.     Proud,  happy  child. 
Untiring  now,  in  many  a  lengthen'd  walk, 
Yet  resting  oft  (iiis  arm  encircling  me) 
On  the  old  mile-stone,  in  our  homeward  way." 

A  thought  crosses  us  here  that  her  mother  may  have  died. 
Yet  her  name  is  mentioned  in  a  subsequent  passage  ;  but 
this  leaves  us  in  uncertainty,  for  the  order  of  time  is  not 
always  preserved,  and  the  transitions  obey  the  bidding 
of  some  new-risen  thought.  The  gloom  hanging  over 
the  beginning  of  the  following  passage  looks  like  that  of 
death  : — 

"  My  father  loved  tlie  patient  angler's  art; 
And  many  a  summer  day,  from  early  morn 
To  latest  evening,  by  some  streamlet's  side 
We  two  have  tarried;   strange  companionship! 
A  sad  and  silent  man  ;  a  joyous  child. — 


THE  BIRTH-DAY.  373 

Yet  were  those  days,  as  I  recall  them  now, 

Supremely  happy.     Silent  though  he  was, 

My  father's  eyes  were  often  on  iiis  child 

Tenderly  eloquent — and  his  few  words 

Were  kind  and  o^enlle.     Never  ang-ry  tone 

Repulsed  me,  if  I  broke  upon  his  thoughts 

With  childisli  question.     But  I  learnt  at  last — 

Learnt  intuitively  to  hold  my  peace 

When  the  dark  hour  was  on  him,  and  deep  sighs 

Spoke  the  perturbed  spirit — only  then 

I  crept  a  little  closer  to  liis  side, 

And  stole  my  hand  in  his,  or  on  his  arm 

Laid  my  cheek  softly  ;  till  the  simple  wile 

Won  on  his  sad  abstraction,  and  he  lurn'd 

With  a  faint  smile,  and  sigh'd,  and  shook  his  head. 

Stooping  toward  me  ;  so  I  reached  at  last 

Mine  arm  about  his  neck,  and  clasp'd  it  close. 

Printing  his  pale  brow  with  a  silent  kiss." 

"  That  was  a  lovely  brook,  by  whose  green  marge 
We  two  (the  patient  angler  and  his  child) 
Loiter'd  away  so  many  summer  days ! 
A  shallow  sparkling  stream,  it  hurried  now 
Leaping  and  glancing  among  large  round  stones, 
With  everlasting  friction  cliafing  still 
Their  polish'd  smoothness — on  a  gravelly  bed. 
Then  softly  slipt  away  with  rippling  sound. 
Or  all  inaudible,  where  the  green  moss 
Sloped  down  to  meet  the  clear  reflected  wave. 
That  lipp'd  its  emerald  bank  with  seeming  show 
Of  gentle  dalliance.     In  a  dark,  deep  pool 
Collected  now,  the  peaceful  waters  slept 
Embay'd  by  rugged  headlands;  hollow  roots 
Of  huge  old  pollard  willows.     Anchored  there 
Rode  safe  from  every  gale,  a  silvan  fleet 
Of  milk-white  water  lilies  ;  every  bark 
Worthy  as  those  on  his  own  sacred  flood 
To  waft  the  Indian  Cupid.     Then  the  stream 
Brawling  again  o'er  pebbly  shallows  ran, 
On — on,  to  where  a  rustic,  rough-hewn  bridge. 
All  bright  with  mosses  and  green  ivy  wreathes, 
Spann'd  the  small  channel  with  its  single  arch ; 
And  underneath,  the  bank  on  either  side 
Shelved  down  into  the  water  darkly  green 
Wilh  unsunn'd  verdure;  or  whereon  the  sun 
Look'd  only  when  his  rays  at  eventide 

ou  I.  82 


374  avilson's  miscellaneous  wkitinos. 

Obliquely  glanced  between  the  blacken'd  piers 

With  arrowy  beams  of  orient  emerald  light 

Touching  tiie  river  and  its  velvet  marge — 

'Twas  there,  beneath  the  archway,  just  Vv'ithin 

Its  rough  misshapen  piles,  I  found  a  cave, 

A  little  secret  cell,  one  large  flat  stone 

Its  ample  floor,  embedded  deep  in  moss, 

And  a  rich  tuft  of  dark  blue  violet. 

And  fretted  o'er  with  curious  groining  dark. 

Like  vault  of  Gothic  chapel  was  the  roof 

Of  that  small  cunning  cave — '  The  Nereid's  Grot !' 

I  named  it  learnedly,  for  I  had  read 

About  Egeria,  and  was  deeply  versed 

In  heathenish  stories  of  the  guardian  tribes 

In  groves,  and  single  trees,  and  silvan  streams 

Abiding  co-existent.     So  methought 

The  little  Naiad  of  our  brook  might  haunt 

That  cool  retreat,  and  to  her  guardian  care 

My  wont  was  ever,  at  the  bridge  arrived, 

To  trust  our  basket,  with  its  simple  store 

Of  home-made,  wholesome  cates ;  by  one  at  home 

Provided,  for  our  banquet-hour  at  noon. 

"A  joyful  hour!  anticipated  keen 
With  zest  of  youthful  appetite  I  trow. 
Full  oft  expelling  unsubstantial  thoughts 
Of  Grots  and  Naiads,  sublimated  fare — 
The  busy,  bustling  joy,  with  housewife  airs 
(Directress,  handmaid,  lady  of  the  feast!) 
To  spread  that  '  table  in  the  wilderness !' 
The  spot  selected  with  deliberate  care. 
Fastidious  from  variety  of  choice. 
Where  all  was  beautiful.    Some  pleasant  nook 
Among  the  fringing  alders  :  or  beneath 
A  single  spreading  oak:  or  higher  up 
Within  the  thicket,  a  more  secret  bower, 
A  little  clearing  carpeted  all  o'er 
With  creeping  strawberry,  and  greenest  moss 
Thick  vcin'd  with  ivy.     There  unfolded  smooth 
The  snowy  napkin  (carefully  secured 
At  every  corner  with  a  pebbly  weight,) 
Was  spread  prelusive  ;  fairly  garnish'd  soon 
With  the  contents  (most  interesting  then) 
Of  the  well-plenish'd  basket:  simple  viands. 
And  sweet  brown  bread,  and  biscuits  for  dessert, 
And  rich  ripe  cherries;  and  two  slender  flasks, 


THE  lUKTII-DAY.  375 

Of  cider  one,  and  one  of  sweet  new  milk, 

Mine  own  allotted  beverage,  temper'd  down 

To  wholesome  thinness  by  admixture  pure 

From  the  near  streamlet.     Two  small  silver  cups 

Set  our  grand  buffet — and  all  was  done  ; 

But  there  I  stood  immovable,  entranced, 

Absorb'd  in  admiration — shifting  oft 

My  groimd  contemplative,  to  reperuse 

In  every  point  of  view  the  perfect  whole 

Of  that  arrangement,  mine  own  handy  work. 

Then  glancing  skyward,  if  my  dazzled  eyes 

Shrank  from  the  sunbeams,  vertically  bright, 

Away,  away,  toward  the  river's  brink 

I  ran  to  summon  from  his  silent  sport 

My  father  to  the  banquet;  tutor'd  well, 

As  I  approach'd  his  station,  to  restrain 

All  noisy  outbreak  of  exuberant  glee; 

Lest  from  their  quiet  haunts  the  finny  prey 

Should  dart  far  off  to  deeper  solitudes. 

The  gentle  summons  met  observance  prompt, 

Kindly  considerate  of  the  famish'd  child: 

And  all  in  order  left — the  mimic  fly 

Examined  and  renew'd,  if  need  required. 

Or  changed  for  other  sort,  as  time  of  day. 

Or  clear  or  clouded  sky,  or  various  signs 

Of  atmosphere  or  water,  so  advised 

T  h'  experienced  angler  ;  the  long  line  afloat — 

The  rod  securely  fix'd ;  then  into  mine 

The  willing  hand  was  yielded,  and  I  led 

With  joyous  exultation  that  dear  guest 

To  our  green  banquet-room.     Not  Leicester's  self, 

When  to  the  hall  of  princely  Kenilworth 

He  led  Elizabeth,  exulted  more 

With  inward  gratulation  at  the  show 

Of  his  own  proud  magnificence,  than  I, 

When  full  in  view  of  mine  arranged  feast, 

I  held  awhile  my  pleased  companion  back, 

Exacting  wonder — admiration,  praise 

With  pointing  finger,  and  triumphant  '  There !'  " 

All  that  is  perfectly  beautiful — "  one  song  that  will  not 
die" — and  so  is  all  the  rest  of  the  picture.  The  banquet 
over,  and  grateful  acknowledgment  made,  her  father  goes 
again  to  the  stream,  bidding  her  take  care  "  that  nothing 
may  be  lost,"  and  she,  understanding  well  the  meaning 
of  the  injunction,  acts  accordingly. 


376  WlLSOJX's  MISCELLANEOUS  WRITIKGS. 

"  So  lib'ral  dole 
I  scatter'd  round  for  the  small  feather'd  things 
Who  from  their  leafy  lodges  all  about 
Had  watch'd  the  strange  intruders  and  their  ways; 
And  eyed  the  feast  with  curious  wistfulness, 
Half  longing  to  partake.     Some  bold,  brave  bird, 
He  of  the  crimson  breast,  approaching  near 
And  near  and  nearer,  till  his  little  beak 
Made  prize  of  tempting  crumb,  and  off  he  flew 
Triumphant,  to  return  (permitted  thief!) 
More  daringly  fiimiliar. 

Neatly  pack'd 
Napkin  and  cups,  with  the  diminish'd  store 
Of  our  well-lighten'd  basket — largess  left 
For  our  shy  woodland  ho>ts,  some  special  treat 
In  fork'd  brancii  or  hollow  trunk  for  him 
The  preltiest,  merriest,  with  his  frolic  leaps 
And  jet  black  sparkling  eyes,  and  mimic  wrath 
Clacking  loud  menace.     Yet  before  me  lay 
The  long  bright  summer  evening.     Was  it  long, 
Tediously  long  in  prospect  ?     Nay,  good  sooth  ! 
The  hours  in  Eden  never  swifter  flew 
With  Eve  yet  innocent,  than  fled  with  me 
Their  course  by  thy  fair  stream,  sweet  Royden  vale  !" 

Carry  has  been  accustomed,  on  such  occasions,  to 
extract,  "  with  permitted  hand,"  from  a  certain  pouch, 
ample  and  deep,  within  the  fisher's  coat,  an  old  clumsy 
russet-covered  book,  which  furnished  enjoyment,  increasing 
with  renewed  and  more  intimate  experience — a  copy  of 
old  Isaac  W^alton  !     And  there, 

"  The  river  at  my  feet,  its  mossy  bank, 
Clipt  by  that  cover'd  oak  my  pleasant  seat, 
Still  as  an  image  in  its  carved  shrine, 
I  nestled  in  my  sylvan  niche,  like  hare 
Upgather'd  in  her  form,  upon  my  knees 
The  open  book,  over  which  I  stoop'd  intent, 
Half  hidden  (the  large  liat  flung  careless  off,) 
In  a  gold  gleaming  shower  of  auburn  curls." 

Nor  is  there  in  print  or  manuscript  a  more  faithful  cha- 
racter than  is  here  afterwards  drawn  in  lines  of  light,  by 
woman's  hand,  of  gentle  Isaac! 

VVc  know  not  whether  the  long  quotation  given  above 
or  the  following  be  the  more  delightful. 


THE  BIRTH-DAY.  377 

"Dear  n-arden  !  once  again  with  lingering  look 
Reverted,  half  remorseful,  let  me  dwell 
Upon  thee  as  thou  wert  in  that  old  time 
Of  happy  days  departed.     Thou  art  changed. 
And  I  liave  changed  thee — was  it  wisely  done  ! 
Wisely  and  well  they  say  who  look  thereon 
With  unimpassion'd  eye — cool,  clear,  undimm'd 
By  moisture  such  as  memory  gathers  oft 
In  mine,  while  gazing  on  the  things  that  are 
Not  with  the  hallow'd  past,  the  loved,  the  lost, 
Associated  as  those  I  now  retrace 
Witli  tender  sadness.     The  old  shrubbery  walk, 
Straight  as  an  arrow,  was  less  graceful  far 
Than  this  fair  winding  among  flowers  and  turf, 
Till  with  an  artful  curve  it  sweeps  from  sight 
To  reappear  again,  just  seen  and  lost 
Among  the  hawthorns  in  tiie  little  dell. 
Less  lovely  the  old  walk,  but  there  I  ran 
Holding  my  mother's  hand,  a  happy  child  ; 
There  were  her  steps  imprinted,  and  my  father's, 
And  those  of  many  a  loved  one,  now  laid  low 
In  his  last  resting  place.     No  flowers  melhinks 
That  now  I  cultivate  are  half  so  sweet. 
So  bright,  so  beautiful  as  those  that  bloom'd 
In  the  old  formal  borders.     These  clove  pinks 
Yield  not  such  fragrance  as  the  true  old  sort 
That  spiced  our  pot-pourrie  (my  mother's  pride) 
With  such  peculiar  richness;  and  this  rose, 
With  its  fine  foreign  name,  is  scentless,  pale, 
Compared  with  the  old  cabbage — those  that  blush'd 
In  the  thick  hedge  of  spiky  lavender — 
8uch  lavender  as  is  not  now-a-days  ; 
And  gillyflowers  are  not  as  they  were  then 
tiure  lo  '  come  double ;'  and  the  night  breeze  now 
Sighs  not  so  loaded  with  delicious  scents 
Of  lily  and  sevinger.     Oh,  my  heart ! 
Is  all  indeed  so  alter'd  ? — or  art  thou 
The  changeling,  sore  aweary  now  at  times 
Of  all  beneath  the  sun  ] 

"  Such  weariness 
Knows  not  that  blessed  springtide  of  the  heart 
When  'treasures  dwell  in  flowers.'     How  glad  was 
How  joyously  exultant,  when  I  found 
Such  virtues  in  my  flowery  treasury 
As  hitherto  methought  discoverer's  eye 
Had  pass'd  unheeded  I     Here  at  once  I  found, 
32* 


378  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

Unbought,  un=ucd  for,  the  desired  command 
(How  longingly  desired  !)  of  various  dyes, 
Wherewith  to  tint  the  semblance  incomplete 
In  its  hard  pencil  ou  line,  of  those  forms 
Of  floral  loveliness,  whose  juices  now 
Supplied  me  with  a  palette  of  all  hues. 
Bright  as  the  rainbow.     Brushes  lack'd  I  none 
For  my  rude  process,  the  soft  flower  or  leaf 
Serving  for  such  ;  its  moisture  nice  express'd 
By  a  small  cunning  hand,  where'er  required 
The  imitative  shadow  to  perfect 
With  glowing  colour.     Heavens!  how  plain  1  sec, 
Even  at  this  moment,  the  first  grand  result 
Of  that  occult  invention.      There  it  lies. 
Living  as  life  itself  (I  thought  no  less,) 
A  sprig  of  purple  stock,  that  dullest  eye 
Must  have  detected,  and  lault-finding  critic 
Have  ovvn'd  at  least  a  likeness.     Mother's  love 
Thought  it  perfection,  when  with  stealing  step 
And  flushing  face  and  conscious,  I  drew  near 
And  laid  it  on  her  lap  without  a  word  ; 
Then  hung  upon  her  shoulder,  shrinking  back 
With  a  child's  baslifulness,  all  hope  and  fear, 
Shunning  and  courting  notice; 

But  I  kept 
Profoundly  secret,  certain  floral  rites 
Observed  with  piously  romantic  zeal 
Through  half  a  summer.     Heaven  forgave  full  sure 
The  unconscious  profanation,  and  the  sin, 
If  sin  there  was,  be  on  thy  head,  old  friend, 
Pathetic  Gesner  !  for  thy  touching  song 
(That  most  poetic  prose)  recording  sad 
The  earliest  annals  of  the  hunian  race, 
And  death's  first  triumph,  fill'd  me,  heart  and  brain, 
With  stirring  fancies,  in  my  very  dreams 
Exciting  strange  desires  to  realize. 
What  to  the  inward  vision  was  reveal'd, 
Haunting  it  like  a  passion.     For  I  saw. 
Plain  as  in  substance,  that  first  human  iiome 
In  the  first  earti)ly  garden; — saw  the  flowers 
Set  round  her  leafy  bower  by  banish'd  Eve, 
And  water'd  with  her  tears,  as  they  recall'd 
Faintly  the  forfeit  Eden;  the  small  rills 
She  taught  to  wander  'inongst  their  blooming  tribes, 
Completing — not  the  semblance,  but  the  shade. 


THE  BIRTII-DAY.  379 

But  beautiful,  most  beautiful  methouglit 
The  altar  of  green  turf,  whereon  were  laid 
Offerinj^s  as  yet  unstain'd  with  blood — choice  fruits, 
And  fairest  flowers  fresh  cnll'd, 

'And  God  must  still,' — 
So  with  myself  I  argued — 'surely  love 
Such  pure,  sweet  offerings.     There  can  be  no  harm 
In  laying  them,  as  Eve  was  wont,  each   day 
On  such  an  altar; — what  if  I  could  make 
Something  resembling  that!'    To  work  I  went 
With  the  strong  purpose,  which  is  strength  and  power; 
And  in  a  certain  unfrequented  nook 
Of  our  long  rambling  garden,  fenced  about 
By  thorns  and  bushes,  thick  with  summer  leaves, 
And  threaded  by  a  little  water  course 
(No  substitute  contemptible  methought 
For  Eve's  meandering  rills,)  uprose  full  soon 
A  mound  of  mossy  turf,  that  when  complete, 
I  call'd  an  altar:  and  with  simple  faith — 
Ay — and  with  feelings  of  adoring  love 
Hallowing  the  childish  error — laid  thereon 
Daily  my  floral  tribute — yet  from  prayer, 
Wherewith  I  long'd  to  consecrate  the  act. 
Refraining  with  an  undefined  fear 
(Instinctive)  of  offence:  and  there  was  doubt 
Of  perfect  blamelessness  (unconscious  doubt) 
In  the  suspicious,  unrelaxing  care 
With  which  I  kept  my  secret.     All's  not  well. 
When  heart?,  that  should  be  open  as  the  day, 
Shrink  from  inspection.     So  by  slow  degrees 
I  grew  uneasy  and  afraid,  and  long'd 
To  cast  off  the  strange  burthen — and  at  last 
Ceasing  my  visits  to  '  the  sacred  grove,' 
T  soon  forgot,  absorb'd  in  fresh  pursuits. 
The  long  neglected  altar — till  one  day. 
When  coming  winter,  witli  his  herald  blasts 
Had  thinn'd  the  covert's  leafiness,  I  saw 
Old  Ephraim  in  his  clearing  progress  pause. 
And  strike  his  spade  against  a  mossy  heap, 
Wash'd  low  by  autumn's  rains,  and  litter'd  romid 
Among  the  thick  strewn  leaves,  with  spars  and  shells, 
And  broken  pottery,  and  shrivell'd  things. 
That  had  been  garlands. 

'This  is  Missy's  work,' 
Quoth  the  old  man,  and  shook  his  hend,  and  smiled — 


380  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

'  Lord  bless  her  !  how  the  child  has  toil'd  and  moird 
To  scrape  up  all  the  rubbish.     Here's  enough 
To  load  a  jackass!' 

Desecrated  shrine ! 
Such  was  thy  fate,  demolish'd  as  he  spoke ; 
And  of  my  Idyl  the  concluding  page." 

Ephraim,  the  old  gardener  is  a  well-drawn  character, 
and  so  is  Priscilla  his  wife.  The  picture  of  their  house- 
hold is  painted  with  infinite  spirit,  and  to  the  very  life. 
Wilkie  would  be  pleased  with  it — nor  do  we  know  that 
Miss  Bowles's  pen  is  not  almost  equal,  in  such  portraiture, 
to  his  pencil,  as  it  used  to  be  long  ago,  when  the  great 
master  chiefly  busied  himself  with  the  shows  of  humble 
life.  Of  all  the  many  articles  of  choice  furniture,  and 
rarities  not  correctly  included  in  that  term,  the  most  at- 
tractive to  Carry's 

"  Rapt  soul,  settling  in  her  eyes," 

was  a  Cuckoo  Clock  !  To  our  mind  there  is  in  the  pas- 
sage descriptive  of  the  sudden  and  permanent  passion  for 
this  rare  device,  the  most  vivid  evidence  of  the  poetical 
character,  while  to  our  heart  the  close  is  the  perfection  of 
the  pathetic. 

"  But  chief — surpassing  all — a  cuckoo  clock  ! 
That  crowning  wonder  !  miracle  of  art! 
How  have  I  stood  entranced  uncounted  minutes. 
With  held-in  breath,  and  eyes  intently  fix'd 
On  that  small  magic  door,  that  when  complete 
Th'  expiring  hour — the  irreversible — 
Flew  open  with  a  startling  suddenness 
That,  though  expected,  sent  the  rushing  blood 
In  mantling  fluslies  o'er  my  upturn'd  face  ; 
And  as  the  bird  (that  more  than  mortal  fowl  !) 
With  perfect  mimicry  of  natural  tone, 
Note  after  note  exact  time's  message  told, 
How  my  heart's  pulse  kept  time  with  the  charni'd  voice  ! 
And  when  it  ceased  made  simultaneous  pause 
As  the  small  door  clapt  to,  and  all  was  still. 

"  Long  did  I  meditate — yea,  often  dream 
By  day  and  night,  at  school-time  and  at  play — 


TUE  BIIITH-DAV.  381 

Alas !  at  holiest  seasons,  even  at  church 

The  vision  haunted  me, — of  that  rare  thing, 

And  hiri  tiurpassing  happiness  to  whom 

Fate  should  assign  its  fellow.     TJiereupon 

Sprang  up  crude  notions,  vague  incipient  schemes 

Of  future  independence:     INot  like  those 

Fermenting  in  the  youthful  brain  of  her 

Maternally,  on  fashionable  system, 

Train'd  up  betimes  i'  the  way  that  she  should  go 

To  the  one  great  end — a  good  establishment. 

Yet  similar  in  some  sort,  were  our  views 

Toward  contingent  power.     '  When  I'm  a  woman 

I'll  have,'  quoth  I,— so  far  the  will  and  when 

Tallied  exactly,  but  our  difference  lay 

Touching  the  end  to  be  achieved.     With  me, 

Aoi  settlements,  and  pin-money,  and  spouse 

Appendant,  but  in  unencumber'd  right 

Of  womanhood — a  house  and  cuckoo  clock  ! 

Hark !  as  I  iiang  reflective  o'er  my  task. 

The  pen  fresh  nibb'd  and  full,  held  idly  yet; 

What  sound  comes  clicking  through  the  half-closed  door, 

Distinct,  monotonous]     'Tis  even  so; 

Years  past,  the  pledge  (self-pligiited)  was  redeem'd ; 

There  hangs  with  its  companionable  voice 

The  cuckoo  clock  in  this  mine  house. — Ay,  mine; 

But  left  unto  me  desolate." 

One  quotation  more  we  have  room  for,  equal,  so  we 
think,  to  any  thing  of  the  kind  in  our  modern  poetry. 

"  Then — most  happy  child! 
Most  favDur'd  !  I  was  sent  a  frequent  guest, 
Secure  of  w'elcome,  to  the  loveliest  home 
Of  all  the  country,  o'er  whose  quiet  walls 
Brooded  the  twin-doves — Holiness  and  Peace: 
There  with  thine  aged  partner  didst  thou  dwell. 
Pastor  and  master  !  servant  of  thy  Lord, 
Faithful  as  he,  the  labours  of  whose  love 
Recorded  by  thy  pen,  embalm  for  aye 
The  name  of  Gilpin  heir'd  by  thee — right  heir 
Of  the  saint's  mantle.     Holy  Bernard's  life. 
Its  apostolic  graces  unimpair'd, 
Renew'd  in  William's,  virtuous  parish  priest! 

"Let  me  live  o'er  again,  in  fond  detail. 
One  of  those  happy  visits.     Leave  obtain'd, 


382  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

Methought  the  clock  stood  still.     Four  hours  past  noon, 

And  not  yet  started  on  our  three  mile  walk  ! 

And  six  the  vicarage  tea  hour  primitive, 

And  I  should  lose  that  precious  hour,  most  prized. 

When  in  the  old  man's  study,  at  his  feet 

Or  nestling  close  beside  him,  I  might  sit 

With  eye,  ear,  soul  intent  on  his  mild  voice. 

And  face  benign,  and  words  so  simply  wise. 

Framed  for  his  childish  hearer.     'Let  us  go  !' 

And  like  a  fawn  I  bounded  on  before, 

When  lagging  Jane  came  forth,  and  off  we  went. 

Sultry  the  hour,  and  hot  the  dusty  way. 

Though  here  and  there  by  leafy  skreen  o'erarch'd — 

And  the  long  broiling  liill !  and  that  last  mile 

When  the  small  frame  wax'd  weary !  the  glib  tongue 

Slackening  its  motion  with  the  languid  limbs. 

But  joy  was  in  the  heart,  howe'er  suppress'd 

Its  outward  show  exuberant ;  and,  at  length, 

Lo !  the  last  turning — lo !  the  well-known  door, 

Festoon'd  about  with  garlands  picturesque. 

Of  trailing  evergreens.     Who's  weary  now? 

Sounding  the  bell  with  that  impatient  pull 

That  quickens  Mistress  Molly's  answering  steps 

To  most  unusual  promptness.     Turns  the  lock — 

The  door  uncloses — Molly's  smiling  face 

Welcomes  unask'd.     One  eager,  forward  spring, 

And  farewell  to  tlie  glaring  world  without; 

The  glaring,  bustling,  noisy,  parch'd-up  world! 

And  hail  repose  and  verdure,  turf  and  flowers. 

Perfume  of  lillies,  through  the  leafy  gloom 

White  gleaming;  and  the  full,  rich,  mellow  note 

Of  song-thrush,  hidden  in  the  tall  thick  bay 

Beside  the  study  window  ! 

The  old  house 
Through  flickering  shadows  of  high-arching  boughs, 
Caught  gleams  of  sunlight  on  its  time-stain'd  walls, 
And  frieze  of  mantling  vine;  and  lower  down, 
Train'd  among  jasmines  to  the  southern  bow, 
Moss  roses,  bursting  into  richest  bloom, 
Blush'd  by  the  open  window.     There  she  sate, 
The  venerable  lady  (her  white  hair 
White  as  the  snowy  coif,)  upon  her  book 
Or  needlework  intent ;  and  near  at  hand 
The  maiden  sister  friend  (a  life-long  guest) 
At  her  coarse  sempstresship — another  Dorcas, 
Unwearying  in  the  work  of  charity. 


THE    BIRTII-DAY.  383 

"Oh  !  kindest  greeting  !  as  the  door  unclosed 
That  welcomed  the  half-bold  haU'-bashfiil  guest; 
And  brought  me  bounding  on  at  half  a  word 
To  meet  the  proli'er'd  kiss.     Oli  kindest  care ! 
Considerate  of  my  long,  hot,  dusty  walk, 
Of  iiat  and  tippet  that  divested  nic, 
And  clinging  gloves;  and  from  the  glowing  cheek 
And  hot  brow,  parted  back  the  clustering  curls, 
Applying  grateful  coolness  of  clear  lymph, 
Distill'd  from  fragrant  elder — sovereign  wash 
For  sunburnt  skm  and  freckled  !     Kindest  care, 
That  follow'd  up  those  offices  of  love 
By  cautionary  charge  to  sit  and  rest 
'  Quite  still  till  tea  time.'     Kindest  care,  I  trow, 
But  little  relish'd.     Restless  was  my  rest. 
And  wistful  eyes  still  wandering  to  the  door, 
Reveal'd  '  the  secret  of  my  discontent,' 
And  told  where  I  would  be.     The  lady  smiled, 
And  shook  her  head,  and  said, — 

'  Well !  go  your  ways 
And  ask  admittance  at  that  certain  door 
You  know  so  well.'     All  weariness  was  gone — 
Blithe  as  a  bird,  thus  freed,  away  I  flew. 
And  in  three  seconds  at  the  well-known  door 
Tapp'd  gently;  and  a  gentle  voice  within 
Asking  '  Who's  there  !'     '  It's  me,'  I  answer'd  low, 
Grammatically  clear.     '  Let  me  come  in.' 
The  gentle  voice  rejoin'd ;  and  in  I  stole, 
Bashfully  silent,  as  the  good  man's  smile, 
And  hand  extended,  drew  me  to  his  chair; 
And  there,  all  eye  and  ear,  I  stood  full  long, 
Still  tongueless,  as  it  seem'd  ;  love-tempering  awe 
Chaining  my  words  up.     But  so  kindly  his. 
His  aspect  so  benign,  his  winning  art 
So  graciously  conforming  ;  in  short  time 
Awe  was  absorb'd  in  love,  and  then  unchain'd 
By  perfect  confidence,  the  little  tongue 
Question'd  and  answer'd  with  as  careless  ease 
As  might  be,  from  irreverend  boldness  free. 
True  love  may  cast  out  fear,  but  not  respect, 
That  fears  the  very  shadow  of  ofTence. 

"  How  holy  was  the  calm  of  that  small  room  ! 
How  tenderly  the  evening  light  stole  in. 
As  'twere  in  reverence  of  its  sanctity  ! 
Here  and  there  touching  with  a  golden  gleam 


384  mtlson's  miscellaneous  mritings. 

Book-shelf  or  picture-frame,  or  brightening  up 
The  nosegay  set  with  daily  care  (love's  own) 
Upon  the  study  table.     Dallying  there 
Among  the  books  and  papers,  and  with  beam 
Of  softest  radiance,  starring  like  a  glory 
The  old  man's  high  bald  head  and  noble  brow — 
There  still  I  found  him,  busy  with  his  pen — 
(Oh  pen  of  varied  power!  found  faithful  ever, 
Faithful  and  fearless  in  the  one  great  cause) — 
Or  some  grave  tome,  or  lighter  work  of  taste 
(His  no  ascetic,  harsh,  soul-narrowing  creed), 
Or  ihat  unrivall'd  pencil,  with  few  strokes, 
And  sober  tinting  slight,  that  wrought  effects 
Most  magical — the  poetry  of  art! 
Lovely  simplicity  !  (true  wisdom's  grace) 
That  condescending  to  a  simple  child, 
Spread  out  before  me  hoards  of  graphic  treasures ; 
Smiling  encouragement,  as  I  express'd 
Delight  or  censure  (for  in  full  good  faith 
I  play'd  the  critic),  and  vouchsafing  mild 
T'  explain  or  vindicate;  in  seeming  sport 
Instructing  ever;  and  on  graver  themes 
Winning  my  heart  to  listen,  as  he  taught 
Things  that  pertain  to  life. 

Oh  precious  seed  ! 
Sown  early ;  soon,  too  soon  the  sower's  hand, 
The  immediate  mortal  instrument  withdrawn, 
Tares  of  this  evil  world  sprang  thickly  up. 
Choking  your  promise.     But  the  soil  beneath 
(Nor  rock  nor  shifting  sand)  retain'd  ye  still, 
God's  mercy  willing  it,  until  his  hand. 
Chastening  as  fathers  chasten,  clear'd  at  last 
Th'  encumber'd  surface,  and  the  grain  sprang  up — 
But  hath  it  flourish'd  ? — hath  it  yet  borne  fruit 
Acceptable  !     Oh  Father !  leave  it  not 
For  lack  of  moisture  yet  to  fall  away  !" 

We  have  now  reached  the  close  of  the  "  Birth-Day," 
and  of  this  number  of  Maga,  which  we  are  confident  will 
be  felt  to  be  a  delightful  one,  were  it  but  for  our  profuse 
quotations  from  this  delightful  poem.  It  has  already  had 
a  pretty  wide  circulation  ;  but  in  a  few  days  hence  it  will 
have  been  perused  by  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands,  in 
our  pages — and  by  and  by  the  volume  itself  will  find  its 


THE  BIRTir-DAY.  385 

way  into  many  a  quiet  "  homestead"  seldom  visited  by 
books.  The  plan  of  the  poem  might  be  extended  so  as  to 
include  another  season — or  age  of  life.  Yet  it  is  now  a 
whole  ;  and  we  believe  that  it  is  best  it  should  remain  in 
its  present  shape.  Let  us  hope  ere  long  to  have  another 
volume. 


VOL.  I.  33 


ARIA. 

(SOTTO    VOCE.) 
(Blackwood's  Edinburgh  Magazine,  1834.) 

We  used  to  spend  the  opening  year  in  the  country — 
but  for  a  good  many  seasons  have  been  tied  to  town  by 
fetters  as  fine  as  frostwork  filigree,  which  we  could  not 
break  without  destroying  a  whole  world,  of  endearment. 
That  seems  an  obscure  image — but  it  means  what  the 
Germans  would  call  in  English — our  winter  environment. 
We  are  imprisoned  in  a  net  of  our  own  weaving — an  in- 
visible net — yet  we  can  see  it  when  we  choose — ^just  as  a 
bird  can  see,  when  he  chooses,  the  wires  of  his  cage,  that 
are  invisible  in  his  happiness,  as  he  keeps  hopping  and 
fluttering  about  all  day  long,  or  haply  dreaming  on  his 
perch  with  his  poll  under  his  plumes — as  free  in  confine- 
ment as  if  let  loose  into  the  boundless  sky.  That  seems 
an  obscure  image  too;  but  we  mean  what  Wordsworth  says, 
that  the  prison  to  which  we  doom  ourselves  is  in  truth  no 
prison  at  all — and  we  have  improved  on  that  idea,  for 
we  have  built  our  own — and  are  prisoner,  turnkey,  and 
jailer  all  in  one,  and  'tis  noiseless  as  the  house  of  sleep. 
Or  what  if  we  declare  that  Christopher  North  is  a  king  in 
his  palace,  with  no  subjects  but  his  own  thoughts — his 
rule  peaceful  over  those  lights  and  shadows — and  undis- 
puted to  reign  over  them  his  right  divine. 

The  opening  year  in  a  town,  now,  answers  in  all  things 
to  our  heart's  desire.  How  beautiful  the  smoky  air! 
The  clouds  have  a  homely  look  as  they  hang  over  the 
happy  families  of  houses,  and  seem  as  if  they  loved  their 


AuiA.  387 

birthplace; — all  unlike  those  heartless  clouds  that  keep 
stravaiging  over  mountain  tops,  and  have  no  domicile  in 
the  sky  ! — Poets  speak  of  living  rocks,  but  what  is  their 
life  to  that  of  houses  ?  Who  ever  saw  a  rock  with  eyes — 
that  is,  with  windows  ?  Stone-blind  all,  and  stone-deaf, 
and  with  hearts  of  stone  ;  whereas  who  ever  saw  a  house 
without  eyes — that  is,  windows?  Our  own  is  an  Argus; 
yet  the  good  old  Conservative  grudges  not  the  assessed 
taxes,  his  optics  are  as  cheerful  as  the  day  that  lends  them 
light,  and  Ihcy  love  to  salute  the  setting  sun,  as  if  a  hun- 
dred beacons,  level  above  level,  were  kindled  along  a 
mountain  side.  He  might  safely  be  pronounced  a  mad- 
man who  preferred  an  avenue  of  trees  to  a  street.  Why, 
trees  have  no  chimneys  ;  and,  were  you  to  kindle  a  fire  in 
the  hollow  of  an  oak,  you  would  soon  be  as  dead  as  a  Druid. 
It  won't  do  to  talk  to  us  of  sap,  and  the  circulation  of  sap. 
A  grove  in  winter,  bole  and  branch — leaves  it  has  none — 
is  as  dry  as  a  volume  of  sermons.  But  a  street,  or  a 
square,  is  full  of  "  vital  sparks  of  heavenly  flame"  as  a 
volume  of  poetry,  and  the  heart's  blood  circulates  through 
the  system  like  rosy  wine. 

But  a  truce  to  comparisons  ;  for  we  are  beginning  to 
feel  contrition  for  our  crime  against  the  country,  and,  with 
humbled  head  and  heart,  we  beseech  you  to  pardon  us — 
ye  rocks  of  Pavey-Ark,  the  pillared  palace  of  the  storms 
— ye  clouds,  now  wreathing  a  diadem  for  the  forehead  of 
Helvellyn  —  ye  trees,  that  hang  the  shadows  of  your  undy- 
ing beauty  over  the  "  one  perfect  chrysolite"  of  blessed 
Windermere ! 

Our  meaning  is  transparent  now  as  the  hand  of  an  ap- 
parition waving  peace  and  goodwill  to  all  dwellers  in  the 
land  of  dreams.  In  plainer  but  not  simpler  words  (for 
words  are  like  flowers,  often  radiant  in  their  simplicity — 
witness  the  lily,  and  Solomon's  Song,)  contributors,  and 
subscribers,  and  readers,  all,  we  wish  you  a  happy  new 
year,  in  town  or  in  country — or  in  ships  at  sea! 

A  hajjpy  new  year  ! — Ah  !  ere  this  Aria,  sung  sotto 
voce,  reach  your  ears,  (eyes  are  ears,  and  ears  eyes,)  the 
week  of  all  weeks  will  be  over  and  gone,  and  the  new 
year  will  seem  growing  out  of  the  old  year's  ashes  ! — 


388  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

For  the  year  is  your  only  Phoenix.  But  what  with  time 
to  do  has  a  wish — a  hope, — a  prayer?  Their  power  is 
in  the  Spirit  that  gives  them  birth,  and  there  they  are 
immortal — for  spirit  never  dies.  And  what  is  spirit  but 
the  well-head  of  thoughts  and  feelings  flowing  and  over- 
flowing all  life,  yet  leaving  the  well-head  full  of  water  as 
ever — so  lucid,  that  on  your  gazing  intently  into  its  depths, 
it  seems  to  become  a  large  soft  spiritual  eye,  reflecting  the 
heavens  and  the  earth  !  And  no  one  knows  what  the 
heavens  and  the  earth  are,  till  he  has  seen  them  there — 
for  that  God  made  the  heavens  and  the  earth  we  feel  from 
that  beautiful  revelation — and  where  feeling  is  not,  know- 
ledge is  dead,  and  a  blank  the  universe.  Love  is  life. 
The  unloving  merely  breathe.  A  single  sweet  beat  of  the 
heart  is  token  of  something  spiritual  that  will  be  with  us 
again  in  Paradise.  "  O,  bliss  and  beauty  !  are  these  our 
feelings" — thought  we  once  in  a  dream — "all  circling  in 
the  stuishine — faii'-plumed  in  a  flight  of  doves !"  The 
vision  kept  sailing  on  the  sky — to  and  fro  for  our  delight 
— no  sound  on  their  wings  more  than  on  their  breasts — 
and  they  melted  away  in  light  as  if  they  were  composed 
of  light — and  in  the  hush  we  heard  high-up  and  far-ofF 
music — as  of  an  angel's  song. 

That  was  a  dream  of  the  mysterious  night ;  but  now  we 
are  broad  awake — and  see  no  emblematical  phantoms,  but 
the  mere  sights  of  the  common  day.  But  sutTicient  for  the 
day  is  the  beauty  thereof — and  it  inspires  us  with  affection 
for  all  beneath  the  skies.  Will  the  whole  world,  then, 
promise  henceforth  to  love  us — and  we  will  promise  hence- 
forth to  love  the  whole  world  ? 

It  seems  the  easiest  of  all  easy  things  to  be  kind  and 
good — and  then  it  is  so  pleasant !  "  Self-love  and  social 
are  the  same,"  beyond  ?ll  question  ;  and  in  that  lies  the 
nobility  of  our  nature.  The  intensest  feeling  of  self  is  that 
of  belonging  to  a  brotherhood.  All  selves  then  know 
they  have  duties  which  are  in  truth  loves — and  loves  arc 
joys — whether  breathed  in  silence,  or  uttered  in  words,  or 
embodied  in  actions — and  if  they  fdled  all  life,  then  all 
life  would  be  good — and  heaven  would  be  no  more  than  a 
better  earth.     And  how  may  all  men  go  to  heaven?     By 


ARIA.  389 

making  for  themselves  a  heaven  on  earth,  and  thus  pre- 
paring their  spirits  to  breathe  empyreal  air,  when  they 
have  dropped  the  dust.  And  how  may  they  make  for 
themselves  a  heaven  on  earth?     By  building  up  a  happy 

HOME     FOR     THE     HEART.       Much,     but     not     all oh  !    HOt 

nearly  all — is  in  the  site.  But  it  must  be  within  the  pre- 
cincts of  the  holy  ground — and  within  hearing  of  the 
waters  of  life. 

Pleasures  of  Imagination  !  Pleasures  of  Memory  !  Plea- 
sures of  Hope  !  All  three  most  delightful  poems — yet  all 
the  thoughts  and  ail  the  feelings  that  inspired  them — ethe- 
realized — will  not  make — faith  !  "  The  dayspring  from 
on  high  hath  visited  us!"  Blessed  is  he  who  feels  the 
beauty  and  the  glory  of  that  one  line — nor  need  his  heart 
die  within  him,  were  a  voice  to  be  heard  at  midnight  say- 
ing— "  This  New-Year's  day  shall  be  thy  last !" 

Singing  ?  One  voice — one  young  voice — all  by  its 
sweet,  sad,  solitary  self,  singing  a  Christmas  Hymn  ! 
Listening  to  that  music  is  like  looking  at  the  sky  with  all 
its  stars  ! 

Was  it  a  spirit  ? 

"  Millions  of  spiritual  creatures  walk  unseen, 
Sole  or  responsive  to  each  other's  voice, 
Hymning  their  great  Creator." 

But  that  singer,  like  ourselves,  is  mortal  ;  and  in  that 
thought,  to  our  hearts,  lies  the  pathos  of  her  prayers. 
The  angels,  veiling  their  faces  with  their  wings,  sing,  in 
their  bliss,  hallelujahs  round  the  throne  of  heaven  ;  but 
she,  a  poor  child  of  clay,  with  her  face  veiled  but  with  the 
shades  of  humility  and  contrition,  while 

"  Some  natural  tears  she  drops,  but  wipes  them  soon," — 

sings,  in  her  sorrow,  supplications  to  be  suffered  to  see 
afar-offits  everlasting  gates — opening  not  surely  for  her 
own  sake — for  all  of  woman  born  arc  sinful — and  even  she 
— in  what  love  calls  her  innocence — feels  that  her  fallen 
being  does  of  itself  deserve  but  to  die  !     The  hymn  is  fad- 

33* 


390  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

ing — and  fading  away,  likcr  and  liker  an  echo,  and  our 
spirit  having  lost  it  in  the  distance  returns  back  holier  to 
the  heart-hush  of  home  ! 

Again  !  and  with  the  voice  of  a  lute,  "One  of  old  Scot- 
land's songs  so  sad  and  slow  !"  ITer  heart  is  now  blame- 
lessly with  things  of  earth.  "  Sad  and  slow  !"  and  most 
purely  sweet!  Almost  mournful  although  it  be,  it  breathes 
of  happiness — for  the  joy  dearest  to  the  soul  has  ever  a 
faint  tinge  of  grief !  O  innocent  enchantress  !  thou  encir- 
clest  us  with  wavering  haze  of  beautiful  imagery,  by  the 
spell  of  that  voice  awaking  after  a  mood  of  awe,  but  for 
thy  own  delight.  From  the  long  dim  tracts  of  the  past 
come  strangely-blended  recognitions  of  wo  and  bliss,  un- 
distinguishable  now  to  our  own  heart — nor  knows  that 
heart  if  it  be  a  dream  of  imagination  or  of  memory.  Yet 
why  should  we  wonder?  In  our  happiest  hours  there 
may  have  been  something  in  common  with  our  most  sor- 
rowful— some  shade  of  sadness  cast  over  them  by  a  pass- 
ing cloud,  that  now  allies  them  in  retrospect  with  the 
sombre  spirit  of  grief;  and  in  our  unhappiest  hours  there 
may  have  been  gleams  of  gladness,  that  seem  now  to  give 
the  return  the  calm  character  of  peace!  Do  not  all 
thoughts  and  feelings,  almost  all  events  seem  to  resemble 
each  other — when  they  are  dreamt  of  as  all  past?  All 
I'cceive  a  sort  of  sanctification  in  the  stillness  of  the  time 
that  has  gone  by — just  like  the  human  being  whom  they 
adorned  or  degraded — when  they  too  are  at  last  buried  to- 
gether in  the  bosom  of  the  same  earth. 

We  are  all  of  us  getting  old — or  older ;  nor  would  we, 
for  our  own  parts — if  we  could — renew  our  youth.  Me- 
thinks  the  river  of  life  is  nobler  as  it  nears  the  sea.  The 
young  are  dancing  in  their  skiffs  on  the  pellucid  shallows 
near  the  source  on  the  Sacred  Mountains  of  the  golden 
East.  They  whose  lot  it  is  to  be  in  their  prime,  are  drop- 
ping down  the  longer  and  wider  reaches,  that  seem  wheel- 
ing by  with  their  silvan  amphitheatres,  as  if  the  beauty 
were  moving  mornwards,  while  the  voyagers  are  stationary 
among  the  shadows,  or  slowly  descending  the  stream  to 
meet  the  meridian  day.     Many  forget 

"  The  torronl'R  smootlincFS  ore  it  il;i?]i  bojuv;  !" 


AUIA.  391 

and  are  lost  in  the  roaring  whirlpool.  Under  Providence 
we  see  ourselves  on  the  river  expanded  into  a  sea-like  lake, 
or  arm  of  the  sea — and  for  all  our  soul  has  escaped  and 
suffered,  we  look  up  to  the  stars  in  gratitude — and  down 
to  the  stars — for  the  water  too  is  lull  of  stars  as  well  as 
the  sky — faint  and  dim  indeed — biit  blended,  by  the  per- 
vading spirit  of  beauty,  wilh  the  brighter  and  bolder  lumi- 
naries reposing  on  infinitude  ! 

And  may  we  even  have  a  thought  now  of  the  labours  of 
our  leisure — of  but  small  avail  perhaps  for  others'  instruc- 
tion or  delight,  yet  blameless  at  least — and  not  altogether 
without  a  salutary  influence  on  our  own  life,  thus  some- 
times saved  from  "  thoughts  that  make  the  heart  sink," 
and  to  our  own  imagination  enveloped  in  no  unlovely  light 
— such  as  from  clear  or  clouded  moon  sleeps  quietly  or 
fitfully  on  a  river  seeming  subdued  by  the  radiance,  and 
forgetful  of  all  its  own  native  noise.  Maga  surely  is  no  un- 
gentle being — and  her  countenance  at  this  moment  wears 
something  of  the  sweetness  of  Calypso's  smile.  We  have 
begun  again,  you  see,  to  turn  over  the  leaves  of  old  Homer. 
Yet  we  confess  it  is  with  sadness — for  Sotheby,  the  ac- 
complished, the  kind,  the  good,  and  the  venerable,  is  dead 
— and  at  the  thought 

"  Drops  a  sad  serious  tear  upon  our  playful  pen." 

Our  commentaries  on  the  Iliad  were  approved  by  him 
the  noblest  of  ail  its  translators — his  praise  was  far  plea- 
sanler  to  us  than  ours  could  be  to  him — and  shall  be  trea- 
sured up  among  our  most  friendly  remembrances  of  the 
gifted  spirits  wilh  whom  we  have  held  converse  here  below, 
and  who  have  now  gone  to  their  reward.  In  the  Iliad, 
Homer's  genius  was  said  by  Longinus  to  resemble  the 
rising — in  the  Odyssey,  the  setting  sun.  And  the  image 
is  as  true  as  it  is  magnificent ;  for  who  can  say — when 
lost  in  gazing  on  the  luminary — or  thinking  of  him  in  the 
East  or  in  the  West,  in  which  season  and  which  region  he 
is  the  more  beautiful  and  sublime  .'  It  is  gratifying  to  us 
to  know  that  along  with  us  thousands  have  studied  Homer 
— who,  being  no  Greek  scholars,  had  read  before  with  un- 


392  Wilson's  miscellaneous  writings. 

aroused  spirits.  Nor  have  we  not  been  cheered  by  the 
commendations  of  not  a  few  of  the  most  illustrious  in  clas- 
sical literature  in  all  the  land.  Fair  fields  lie  yet  before 
us,  and  we  shall  take  many  a  travel  yet  through  the  god- 
haunted  regions  of  old  heroic  Greece.  The  Greek  drama! 
And  from  the  high  passions  kindling  or  expiring  there,  we 
shall  find  sweet  relief  among  the  shepherds  of  Sicily — and 
with  the  Theocritus  list  to  them  piping  among  the  rocks  all 
a  summer's  day. 

Some  of  our  friends  seem  to  think  that  our  articles  on 
the  Greek  Anthology  are  at  an  end — but  it  is  not  so;  and 
like  a  flush  of  flowers  they  will  be  seen  brightening  the 
banks  and  braes  of  spring.  Thanks  in  thousands  to  our 
numberless  contributors  won  by  the  novel  beauty  of  those 
lovely  little  poems.  But  oh  !  would  they  but  in  their  kind- 
ness think  how  impossible  'tis  for  us  to  return  upon  our 
steps,  however  rich  the  region,  when  so  many  sweetest 
spots  are  wooing  us  to  their  untrodden  dews  !  Let  them 
precede  us  as  guides  through  the  yet  unvisited  scenery  be- 
fore us — if  they  will — or  accompany  us  as  new  compa- 
nions; but  pleasant  as  are  their  presents,  we  fear  we  can- 
not accept  them,  when  composed  of  the  same  flowers  we 
ourselves  have  gathered,  and  have  woven  into  many  a 
garland  of  no  transient  bloom.  What  has  become — it  has 
been  asked  by  many — of  our  promised  papers  upon  Spen- 
cer ?  We  have  feared  to  enter  haunts  of  Faery,  and 
have  remained  long  sitting  on  the  edge  of  the  wood  of 
wonders.  Erelong  we  shall  venture  in  ;  but  have  you  not 
been  charmed  with  the  Hindu  Drama?  And  remember 
though  the  world  of  poetry  is  boundless,  not  so  our  num- 
bers, and  that  our  promises  must  wait  their  accomplish- 
ment in  the  fulness  of  time,  which  they  continue  to  brighten 
as  it  sails  by  on  dusky  wings.  Now  and  then  a  few  of 
the  feeble — nay,  one  or  two  of  the  strong — long  to  per- 
suade themselves  that  sometimes  our  articles  are — too  long! 
So,  no  doubt,  thinks  a  wren  or  a  tom-tit,  perched  between 
an  eagle's  wings,  as  in  high  far  flight  he  soars  the  sky  or 
sweeps  the  sea.  But  there  lies  the  secret  of  our  success  ; 
avail  yourselves  of  it  all  ye  who  can;  but  never  could  we 
have  gained  the  ascendency  it  is  universally  acknowledged 


ARIA.  393 

we  possess  over  so  many  strong  monthly  competitors,  and 
so  swayed  the  mind  of  our  country,  but  by  such  putting 
forth  of  our  own  power  and  that  of  our  noble  coadjutors, 
without  whom  we  could  not  have  won  and  worn  the  crown; 
and  by  the  same  means  by  which  we  have  ascended  our 
throne  will  we  keep  it — and  seated  firmly  there,  look 
graciously  around  us  upon  the  flourishing  Republic  of 
Letters. 


END    OF    VOL.    I. 


THE  MISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS 

or 

T.   BABINGTON   MACAULAY. 

A  new  edition,  complete  in  three  volumes. 

Purchasers   of  the  former   edition   in    Two   Volumes   are 

informed  that  an  additional  number  of  the 

Third  Volume  have  been  printed 

to  complete  their  copies. 

"  These  charmino^  volumes  are  made  up  of  contributions  of 
Mr.  Macaulay  to  the  '  Edinburgli  Review'  between  the  years 
1825  and  18:J7,*  with  an  appendix  contaiiiiiifr  two  beautiful 
specimens  of  his  poetical  powers.  The  subjects  of  the  present 
essays  are  Milton,  Machiavelli,  Dryden,  History  and  Histo- 
rians, Hallam's  Constitutional  History,  Soulhey's  Colloquies 
on  Society,  Lord  Byron,  the  Pilorim's  Progress,  Johnson  and 
Boswell,  Hampden,  Lord  Burij-hley,  '^lirabeau  and  the  French 
Revolution,  the  War  of  the  Succession  in  Spain,  Walpole's 
Letters  to  Sir  Horace  Mann,  the  Earl  of  Chatham  and  his 
Times,  and  the  Life,  Character,  and  Philosophy  of  Lord  Bacon. 

"Many  of  these  subjects,  it  is  obvious,  have  wider  relations: 
all  are  treated  with  extraordinary  sense,  learning,  force,  wit, 
and  eloquence. — Indeed  we  could  not  name  the  recent  work, 
in  which,  within  the  same  compass,  is  to  be  found  an  equal 
amount  of  entertainment  and  instruction.  We  remember, 
soon  after  the  publication  of  the  article  upon  Milton,  upon 
reading  it  in  a  retired  part  of  Europe,  where  we  had  no  means 
of  becoming  acquainted  with  its  authorship,  to  have  remarked 
that  the  Edinburgh  Review  had  obtained  some  new  contri- 
butor, capable  of  sustaining,  if  not  of  increasing  the  fame  of 
its  palmiest  days." — North  American  Review  for  October. 

"  Here  are  three  volumes  of  as  valuable  matter  as  are  to 
be  found  in  the  English  language.  Mr.  Macaulay  has  long 
been  a  contributor  to  the  best  English  Reviews,  and  his  papers 
are  remarkable  for  their  vigour  and  beauty  of  style,  their  deep 
erudition,  and  their  completeness." — Neio  World. 

"  Mr.  Macaulay  is  without  doubt  the  most  brilliant  writer  at 
present  enlisted  in  English  criticism;  and  his  numerous  con- 
tributions to  the  prominent  periodicals  of  Great  Britain  have 
attained  a  popularity  far  greater  than  is  usually  vouchsafed 
to  this  class  of  literary  productions.  His  style  is  classic,  re- 
markably vigorous,  and  at  times  dignified." — New  Yorker. 

*  The  tiiird  vyhunc  contains  all  Mr.  Macaulay's  wrilings  since 
thnt  time. 


THE    WORKS 

OF 

LORD     BOLINGBROKE. 

COMPLETE. 

With,  a  LiifCf  prepared  expressly  for  this  Edition* 

CONTAINING 

RECENT   INFORMATION   RELATIVE  TO  HIS  PER- 
SONAL AND  POLITICAL  CHARACTER, 

SELECTED    FROM    THE    BEST    AUTHORITIES. 

In  Four  Volumes  8v'o.,  printed  on  large  type  and  fine  paper. 

Lord  Broughavfi's  Remarks. 

"  Few  men  whose  public  life  was  so  short,  have  filled  a 
greater  space  in  the  eyes  of  the  world  during  his  own  times, 
than  Lord  Bolingbroke,  or  left  behind  them  a  more  brilliant 
reputation.  Not  more  than  fifteen  years  elapsed  between  his 
first  coming  into  parliament  and  his  attainder;  during  not 
more  than  ten  of  these  years  was  he  brought  before  the  public 
in  the  course  of  its  proceedings ;  and  yet,  as  a  statesman  and 
an  orator,  his  name  ranks  among  the  most  famous  in  our  his- 
tory, independently  of  the  brilliant  literary  reputation  which 
places  him  among  the  best  classics  of  our  Augustan  Age." 


THE  WORKS 

OF 

LORD      BACON. 

WITH  A  MEMOIR  AND  A  TRANSLATION  OF  HIS  LATIN  WRITINGS, 

BY  BASIL  MONTAGU,  ESQ. 
In  three  vols.  8vo. 


NEW  WORKS  IN  PREPARATION. 

CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS 
WRITINGS    OF    LORD    JEFFREY. 

COLLECTED  BY  HIMSELF. 

MISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS 

OF 

T.      NOON      TALFOURD. 

AUTHOR  OF  "  ION." 
One  volume  I2mo.     (Nearly  ready.) 

3VEXSCi:i.I.ANII]S 

BY    REGINALD    HEBER, 

LATE  BISHOP  OF  CALCUTTA. 

CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS 

OF 

SIR       W  ^I  Ij  T  E  R      SCOTT, 

NEVER  BEFORE  PUBLISHED  IN  AMERICA. 
Three  vols.  12nio.     (Now  ready.) 

MXSdSLZiANIES 

BY    J.    G.    LOCKHART,    ESQ. 


WORKS  OF  THE  REV.  SIDNEY  SMITH. 

3  vols.  12mo. 

"  Few  persons,  we  imagine,  will  hesitate  in  assigning  to  Mr. 
Sidney  Smith  a  large  share  of  the  popularity  whicli  the  Edin- 
burgh Review  so  long  enjoyed,  and  of  the  support,  strength,  and 
consistence  that  it  conferred  on  public  opinion  by  its  teachings. 
The  articles  which  are  here  collected,  in  fact  the  most  elabo- 
rate contributions  to  that  Journal,  are  without  doubt  those  which 
fixed  most  generally  the   attention  of  the  public  at  tlie  time: 
and,  while  they  were  most  effectual  in  founding  the  reputation 
of  the  Review,  they  carried  from  the  starting-post  the  sym- 
pathies and  convictions  of  the  reader.     *     *    *    *     It  is  in  the 
midst  of  the  most  mirthful  and  exuberant  outpourings  of  ridicule 
which  mark  the  characteristic  assaults  of  this  writer,  that  pas- 
sages of  strong  feeling  occur  the  most  frequently,  possessing 
the  greater  power  over  the   reader  by  the  very  force  of  the 
contrast.     The  round  and  unvarnished  distinctness  with  which 
he  lays  down  his  principles,  is  but  a  natural  consequence  of  his 
earnestness  of  purpose.     With    these  he   never  trifles,  never 
stands  halting  and  hesitating  between  the  truth  that  is  to  be 
spoken  and  a  desire  to  deprecate  the  wrath  of  the  corrupt,  or 
the  self-love  of  the  foolish.     No  matter  how  great  the  person 
offended,  nor  powerful  the  interest  to  be  attacked,  the  truth 
comes  out  witii  no  saving  clause,  no  mitigating  dependency,  to 
mollify   the   feeble-minded,   or   mislead   the    unsuspecting.     It 
would  not  be  difficult  to  abstract  from  these  volumes  a  code  of 
short  sentences  that  would  embrace    in  the  fewest  and  most 
striking  words  the  whole  field  of  public  morality.     It  is,    in- 
deed, merely  for  the  happier  illustration  of  such  truths,  for  the 
purpose  of  bringing  them  home  to  the  convictions  of  the  lowest 
and  the  least  apprehensive  of  his  readers  that  he  puts  on  the 
motley  :  like  Shakspearo's  clowns,  he  apprehends  a  world  of 
figures,  and  sports  amid  infinite  variety  of  conceits,  the  better 
to  point  the  moral  of  his  tale;  making  his  wit  a  stalking  horse, 
from  wiiich  to  transfix  unsuspecting  drivellers  with  tiie  arrows 
of  his  reforming  philosophy.   Herein  consists  much  of  the  fun  of 
his  peculiar  style,  which  would  speedily  become  a  vapid  man- 
nerism, were  it  not  perpetually  salted  with  vivifying  and  sting- 
ing verities,  arising  out  of  the  midst  of  his  quips  and  quiddities, 
taking  the  reader  off  iiis  guard,  and  telling  with  all  the  more 
eficct  from  the  very  circumstance  of  their  being  unexpected. 

"  Never  does  Mr.  Smith  indulge  in  jocosity  tor  its  own  sake, 
or  trifle  with  the  time  and  patience  of  his  reader  by  a  fool- 
born  jest  to  throw  him  off'  the  scent  of  his  argument;  on  tiie 
contrary,  his  joke  always  contains  the  very  pitii  and  marrow  of 
liis  theme,  and  places  his  syllogism  in  the  most  convincing  light. 
Mr.  Smith's  manner  is  eminently  his  own:  his  logic,  when  he 
is  most  extravagantly  droll,  is  ever  cogent,  and  in  his  earlier 
writings  usually  sound  in  its  premises." — Ijondon  Athencfinn, 


s'.nfj 


*,.-■•  H  lu::-    ^M 


